Lenin Lives Next Door - Jennifer Eremeeva

"You have to really want to go to Russia. The briefest of visits involves a lot of paperwork, and if you want to hang around for any length of time, they make you take a leprosy test." For American writer, imperial Russia enthusiast, and veteran expatriate, Jennifer Eremeeva, this is just one of many observations about Russia, where she has lived for the last twenty years with HRH, her Handsome Russian Husband (occasionally a.k.a. Horrible Russian Husband), and their growing daughter. Luckily for Eremeeva, she didn't need to make up most of the events that inspired this, her first work of fiction. When she (and her alter-ego heroine, coincidentally named Jennifer) quit her job to write full time, she became enthralled with the dingy gray building across the courtyard from her apartment, where, it turned out, Vladimir Lenin's embalmed corpse was routinely freshened up and preserved. The result is Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow. Based on Eremeeva's two decades in Russia, Lenin Lives Next Door knits together vignettes of cross-cultural and expatriate life with sharp observation, colorful historical background, and engaging humor. Each thematic chapter is an anecdotal exploration of an aspect of life in today's Russia, told with the help of a recurring cast of eccentric Russian and expat characters. Lenin Lives Next Door introduces readers to Russians in their everyday milieu: at their dachas, in three-day traffic jams, and celebrating their 300-plus public and professional holidays with mayonnaise-based salads. Lenin Lives Next Door is an inside look at Russia by a recovering Russophile.