This is a graphic novel with two sections. The first section is stories of survivors of the Holodomor (when Stalin tried to starve Ukraine to death by creating a famine in 1932-1933) that includes their stories of survival and also their feelings on soviet rule in general. The second half is about Russia in the then modern day of the aughts. It focuses a lot on Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist who was gunned down in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building after returning from one of her repeated trips to Chechnya where she sent back reports of the atrocities committed by the Russian Army. Her murder is "unsolved" by which I mean "If it wasn't Putin directly, it was someone at that level".
It's a difficult read, but Igort's evocative illustrations and clearly curious and determined efforts to record all these stories make it an emotional journey that's worth taking, and it's a strong place to start if you're trying to understand the modern situations in Ukraine and Russia.
