“The thought hit me that no books had ever been written about my town. I decided to write one. It turned out there were more cities by the name of Zhdanovka and this made writing more complicated. There was a lot of similar information that felt familiar, whereas I had yearned to find something distinctive...”, thus writes Alevtina Kakhidze.
In post-Soviet times life in the industrial regions of East Ukraine has become extremely hard, particularly in small towns like Zhdanovka. The poverty of the population and the instances of human degradation – alcohol abuse, murder, cannibalism – are evident. Having left the town many years ago, Alevtina Kakhidze discovered some facts about the town through the Internet. She decided to take on the position of author and the ensuing book is a re-thinking of her decision to leave.
In the process of working on the publication Alevtina Kakhidze found out that Zhdanovka is the name of many places in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Armenia: all small and ‘unsuccessful’. The story about the town or novel Zhdanovka then became a story of ‘looking for one’s own Zhdanovka’ in so many ‘familiar’ places. As such, her own Zhdanovka has become a fictional place as well.
In this book personal memories, fictional events, news from local newspapers and Internet information are knit together in a poetic, textual network.
