On February 7, 2014, the 23rd Winter Olympic Games will open in Sochi, 150 years after the Tsarist Empire’s victory over the Caucasus after a half a century of fighting. Even today, the rebellious Caucasus is still at war with Russia. Not a week goes by without another representative of the Russian state getting assassinated. These Olympic Games belong to Vladimir Putin, the authoritarian Russian president. He was determined to get them. They came into being thanks to money from the oligarchy, a group that sprang up after the fall of the USSR that has been carefully controlled ever since, making it the keystone of Putin’s political system. He considers the very fact that such a major event could be held there – a stone’s throw from Chechnya, where his army has been given free rein in wiping out the independence movement – proves him right.

This book is a veritable journey through the Caucasus – both its geography and its history. The better to understand both the background and the stakes of what’s currently taking place there, we get large chunks of the past 200 years of this fascinating region’s history (the Russian conquest, massive deportation under Stalin, the recent conflicts and more). The author’s goal is to portray Russia as seen from the Caucasus.