After two and a half years as NPR’s Moscow bureau chief, David Greene trav­els across Rus­sia on a 6,000-mile jour­ney by rail, from Moscow to the Pacif­ic port of Vladi­vos­tok to speak with ordi­nary Rus­sians about how their lives have changed in the post-Sovi­et years. Reach­ing beyond the head­line-grab­bing protests in Moscow, Greene speaks with a group of singing babushkas from Bura­no­vo, a teenag­er hawk­ing space rocks from a mete­or land­ing in Chelyabin­sk, and an activist bat­tling for envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tion in the pol­lu­tion-choked town of Baikalsk. Through the sto­ries of fel­low trav­el­ers, Greene explores the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties fac­ing the new Rus­sia; a nation that boasts open elec­tions and new-found pros­per­i­ty yet still con­tin­ues to endure oppres­sion, cor­rup­tion, and stark inequality.