English language books/documentaries about life in Russia are ten-a-penny nowadays. They usually run thus; wide-eyed foreigner goes traipsing across great swathes of Russia, pausing for the odd vodka and to say ‘Gosh, isn’t everything strange! I wonder what’s going on!’ Entertaining maybe, insightful sometimes, but there comes a time when you want a more in-depth picture. Exactly what Margaret Paxson gives us in ‘Solovyovo, ’

‘Solovyovo’ is an account of Paxson’s stay with one family, in one tiny village in the Russian North, and her attempts to understand the lives, beliefs and history of those who surround her. Thus, the book works through microcosm – a small window on the world can give a sharper focus and yield more insight than a panorama. “Iuliia” and “Mikhail Alekseevich” are the writer’s hosts during her time in the village. an elderly couple, much is illuminated through this account of their concerns, pleasures and reflections, against the backdrop of rural life, with its ancient cyclical rhythms.

Anyone interested in folk customs and beliefs will find this book illuminating, especially as Mikhail Alekseevich is a folk healer. Many in the village have a strong belief in “sglaz”, or the evil eye, and give stories of how this can be given unwittingly through envy of another person. We also get a rare insight into how a russian folk healer will approach the treatment of his patient.

Paxson takes accounts of war time and the different phases of the Soviet era, and analyses them as forms of collective belief, not just factual accounts, coming up with the idea of “the radiant past” as a framework for these recollections, which so often emphasize the camaraderie and simple pleasures experienced in difficult times.

“Solovyovo” is a charming book, intricate and thorough in its anthropological detail, yet approachable enough for the interested layman, with vivid characterization of the main participants. This is the stuff that rural Russian life is made of – now mysterious, now mundane, often harsh, often quietly beautiful.