Black Earth

"Will someone pay for the spilled blood? No. Nobody." When Mikhail Bulgakov composed this dark and prophetic phrase in Kiev amid the turmoil of the Russian civil war, the political troubles of his native Ukraine were well underway, but far from over. In Black Earth: A Journey through the Ukraine, journalist and celebrated travel writer Jens Mühling takes readers across the country during its most recent political crises: the ousting of former president Viktor Yanukovych and the Russian annexation of Crimea. In the midst of this turmoil, Mühling delves deep into daily life in Ukraine, narrating his encounters with Ukrainian nationalists and old communists, Crimean Tatars and Cossacks, smugglers and soldiers, all of whose views could hardly be more different. Black Earth connects all these stories to convey an unconventional and unfiltered view of Ukraine, a country at the crossroads of Europe and Asia and the center of countless conflicts of opinion—and of arms.