It seems to become increasingly impossible to truly understand Russia and its actions. The Volga river, spanning 3500 kilometers, is the heart of the country, and a source of the formative ideas and myths that shaped the country into what it is: an imperial power that still does not accept the disintegration of its empire in 1992. Michel Krielaars traveled on and along the Volga in search of precisely those founding myths.

Coming across Ivan the Terrible for example, who really speaks to the imagination. Dressed in black robes with dog heads strapped to their saddles, his troops crossed the land on horseback, plundering and raping, to keep the nobility in line. It is no coincidence that there are parallels to Putin’s reign of terror. Using a wealth of examples and anecdotes, Michel Krielaars shows that the roots of today’s Russia lie in its past.