Dressed Up for a Riot: Misadventures in Putin's Moscow

Dressed Up for a Riot is the personal account of Latvian-born Michael Idov's two years in Moscow as the head of GQ Russia, and includes a cast of political insiders and dissenting outsiders as extensive as that of a Russian novel. After immigrating to Cleveland at age 16, Idov got a degree from Michigan and moved to New York City as a struggling writer (his novel Ground Up is based on his short-lived Lower East Side business Café Trotsky). Arriving in Moscow in 2012 with more fluency in Russian than most media expats, he immersed himself in its hipster underworld of creatives and political activists. A gung-ho new editor, he shifted the magazine from its previous glam focus on the upscale Rublevka suburban oligarchs to a home for talented young writers covering a broader swath of urban culture and cleverly skewering the establishment.

Idov's intimate knowledge of Moscow's chaotic politics and youth culture makes Dressed Up for a Riot a solid, amusing primer on life in Russia's capital today. Beyond his camaraderie with those participating in anti-Putin protests, Idov became something of a celebrity himself--writing Russian sitcoms, hanging with Pussy Riot and even rubbing shoulders with Trump Jr. when he was in town. He left GQ Russia in 2014 and, disillusioned with both New York and Moscow, currently lives in Berlin. His concluding take on our uneasy world says a lot: "This world doesn't have its orthodoxy down yet, and things can turn on a dime at any moment. In that sense, it feels a lot like Russia." --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

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