SoCultures Magazine 2018 SoCultures Magazine November 2018 | Page 15

SoCultures November 2018
India & Russia
We would like to know more about your book “Globetrotting for Love and Other
Stories from Sakhalin Island.”
Globetrotting for Love and Other Stories from Sakhalin Island is an essentially a
fictionalized account of life in the Russian Far Eastern island of Sakhalin. The
short stories are set in the last decade
when the island was in the midst of
an oil and gas boom.
oom. Sakhalin was
isolated from the rest of the world for
more than three centuries. During the
Soviet period, no foreigners were
allowed to visit the island. In the late
1990s foreign companies were invited
to exploit its oil and gas reserves
and this led
d to a large number of
foreigners moving to the island, and
creating the most interesting period in
the history of the island.
I look at the impact of an oil and gas
boom on a place that had previously
suffered economically on account of
the collapse of the
he Soviet Union.
Then there is the question of the
cultural clash that takes place when
many foreigners interact with
erstwhile isolated Russians for the
first time.
The book is essentially a humorous look at Sakhalin of the 2000s. Those who lived
on the island at that time had a good laugh reading the book. Others found it to be a
fascinating window into one of the most unknown places in the world.
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