Marjorie Farquharson Moscow Diary

Annotation

Moscow Diary is thediary kept by Marjorie Farquharson during the period in which she establishedAmnesty International's Information Office in Moscow, a unique venture during afascinating period of change. In 1991,Marjorie was the first westerner working on human rights with apermanent base. It was particularly important because for years the USSR hadconsidered Amnesty an anti-Soviet organisation - "a nest of spies" so to speak.Marjorie's role together with her penetrating perceptionsand her entertaining style of writing make this a very interesting accountwhich combines insights into the politics of human rights and into theunusually wide range of people Marjorie encountered. Most westerners in Moscowlived a life apart with access to foreign currency shops and good-quality food. Marjorie chose instead to live as an ordinary Muscovite, in one room with asmall kitchen, even when, in 1992, the inflation rate in Russia soared to morethan 2000%. The fact that the diary was written 25 years ago doesn't inany way undermine the author's efforts to help Russia become "a normal country",nor does it hide the author's true passion for the Russian people. A gem of abook capturing a moment in time by a truly humble, self-sacrificing woman.