One Ukrainian Summer By Viv Groskop

Summer 1994. Viv has just turned 21 and is on her year abroad, studying the language, history and politics of a world that supposedly no longer exists: the Soviet Union. Instead, she finds herself studying the lead guitarist of a Ukrainian punk rock band. Utterly besotted, Viv follows him to festivals and dive bars around the country, travelling through a blur of wheat fields and valleys of sunflowers. The guitarist sings her love songs and teaches her Ukrainian. But is he serious about her? Or is she just another groupie? At parties, Viv and her new friends argue about whose turn it is to buy cigarettes and the best places to find Levi’s jeans. No-one debates whether to speak Russian or Ukrainian, where the border is, or whether the future is bright. Of course it is: the Soviet Union is finished. Isn’t it? A poignant, often comical account of coming-of-age in the time after the Cold War and before Putin.