...a fascinating and nuanced account that illuminates the myriad conflicting and often contradictory forces that have shaped the Russia of today.

Yaffa builds on...deeply reported and detailed profiles of Russians who have rationalized the constraints imposed on them and yet have learned how to become adept at what readers might call in the U.S. 'gaming the system.' It’s a fascinating exploration into the beliefs and psyches of Russians in many different career fields who reveal their souls to Yaffa, often to a surprising degree but with little apparent fear of reprisal..

...vivid depictions of extraordinary Russians’ heroic efforts to do something for their communities.

Yaffa isn’t interested primarily in Putin’s misdeeds, but rather in the responses of ordinary people to the society he’s shaped. He seeks the compromisers in contemporary Russia.

Yaffa understands compromise under state pressure as the defining experience of life under Putin.

With sensitivity, the author tells the stories of people living in a repressive, authoritarian era, how they deal with moral and ethical issues, and how they use the system to their advantage in order to survive.

Through a series of finely drawn and moving portraits...Yaffa describes how this system ensnares wily men and wily women, whatever their goals or motivations.

... searching, vividly reported.

... eight long, engrossing New Yorker–style profiles .... powerful.