Kremli võlur - Giuliano Da Empoli

He was called the Kremlin wizard, Putin’s Rasputin. The mysterious Vadim Baranov was a television director and producer before becoming Vladimir Putin’s grey cardinal. But one day, Baranov disappeared; a brief note from the Kremlin announced his resignation as political advisor to the President of the Russian Federation. After his departure from the post of political advisor to the “Tsar”, all sorts of rumors began to surround his person, in which no one could distinguish the truth from the lie. Until that evening, when he decides to tell his story to a Western student with whom he shares an affection for the Russian science fiction writer Yevgeny Zamyatin.

The novel takes us into the maze of the corridors of power in Russia, where Putin’s inner circle and oligarchs fight mercilessly for their positions, and where Vadim Baranov manages to turn the entire country into an arena for a political circus. Vadim is not attracted by power, but rather by the beauty of the game, until he feels trapped in a predatory system that he himself helped to build.

"The Kremlin Wizard" is a powerful novel about Putin's rise to power, Russia's turning away from a momentarily lost opportunity to embark on the path of democracy, and at the same time a reflection on the nature of power in general.