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Pieter Waterdrinker
Pieter Waterdrinker (born 1961, Haarlem) is one of the most successful…
DiscoverPieter Waterdrinker at Boswell Book Festival
The Long Song of Tchaikovsky Street (trans. Paul Evans) is Pieter Waterdrinker’s memoir of the collapse of the Soviet Union based on the author’s own experience of living and immersing himself in the country, and of how revolution has left its mark on his adopted St Petersburg.
It begins in the Netherlands one day in 1988, when an enigmatic priest knocks on his door with an unusual request: will he smuggle 7000 bibles into the Soviet Union? Waterdrinker agrees, to find himself in the midst of one of the biggest social and cultural upheavals of our time, working as a tour operator - with a sideline in contraband.
A long-time Moscow correspondent at the leading Dutch daily De Telegraaf, and one of the most successful Dutch novelists writing today, he blends history with memoir to create an ode to the divided soul of Russia at a critical moment.
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The Long Song of Tchaikovsky Street
‘History doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes.’
One day in 1988, an enigmatic priest knocks on Pieter Waterdrinker’s door with an unusual request: will he smuggle seven thousand bibles into the Soviet Union? Pieter agrees, and soon finds himself living in the midst of one of the biggest social and cultural revolutions of our time, working as a tour operator ... with a sideline in contraband.
Thirty years later, from his apartment on Tchaikovsky Street in Saint Petersburg, where he lives with his Russian wife and three cats, Pieter reflects on his personal history in the Soviet Union, as well as the…
