Moscow Diary
Francesca de Bardin
An American living in Moscow
She has lived in San Francisco, New York, Paris, and a small town in the south of France. She chose Moscow. Moscow Diary is the book she wrote when the country in the headlines and the country on her street would no longer sit in the same sentence.
A writer with a door to open
Francesca did not set out to explain Russia to the world. She set out to live in it. The book began when she could no longer pretend that the Russia she was reading about, from afar, was the Russia she was walking through.
What she offers a reader is company, not a lecture: a woman of traditional temper, widely traveled, plain-spoken, who arrived in the capital in the winter of 2022 with almost no Russian and a lifetime of starting over behind her.
If you have ever suspected that a headline is a poor substitute for a life, she wrote this for you. She will tell you what her days became. She would like you to judge them yourself.
“The first question Russians ask me is: Why are you living here?”
She tells it herself
Francesca speaks about what living in Moscow has been like for her.
Three reasons to open it
1
Two words
She reached Moscow able to say yes and no. Everything that followed — the help, the mistakes, the affection — is the story.
2
The question
Why would an American live here? She is asked it in shops, in taxis, and at dinner. She stopped answering in passing. She answered in a book.
3
The distance
Between the country described in the West and the country she inhabits. She invites you to walk it with her, at the length of a book.