I found the method of jumping from one character to another, “the collage of voices” as described in the summary, at times difficult to follow. It’s not always clear who is speaking. Have we moved on to someone else? Is this a related character, or a totally different narrative? But what comes through is the tragedy of human hatred and violence, how different groups can turn against each other violently in a moment, in a shift of some outside event, so that neighbors who got along can turn on each other, can sadistically murder each other. The lessons that can be learned from this, sadly are applicable to so many societies today. It is hard to comprehend that such ethnic loyalties, whatever that even means, or political loyalties, can turn people into such sadists, and yet we see it every day all over the world. She depicts this well. It is so tragic because we don’t see here any way to save humanity from itself. As far as having a feel for the Soviet era, I’ve read books that I thought were better. What was interesting here was to hear people who are nostalgic for those days, and, yes, they can point to certain aspects that for them, personally, it might have been better. But, of course, very few of the former Soviet nations have fared particularly well after the break-up. The narration is mostly mediocre, but there is one narrator who sounds like she has a chronic sinus condition, extremely nasal, and I found it almost unbearable to listen to. Was this affected for some dramatic reason, or does she really have this condition? She sounded like my daughter, who, when she was a little girl and wanted a day off from school would fake a stuffed “dose”! So we heard from her about “freedob”. This was not a good choice.