Russian Cargo

Novel
Original Russian title: Vineta
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Russian Cargo / Die russische Fracht
Novel
Original Russian title: Vineta
»Oleg Jurjew has written ... an imaginative, audacious book of great linguistic force.« Ilma Rakusa, DIE ZEIT
Attempting to evade criminals threatening his life, Veniamin Jasytschnik flees onto a Ukrainian freighter in the port of St. Petersburg. A ghost ship, as it turns out, carrying on board with it – among other things – Veniamin's colorful past in the form of very lively souls.

The cast includes: a singing captain and his multifarious crew; an Estonian customs official; the bride of a Russian priest gone missing in Poland; a German spy made rich by an oligarch. Czar Peter the Great features...
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Attempting to evade criminals threatening his life, Veniamin Jasytschnik flees onto a Ukrainian freighter in the port of St. Petersburg. A ghost ship, as it turns out, carrying on board with it – among other things – Veniamin's colorful past in the form of very lively souls.

The cast includes: a singing captain and his multifarious crew; an Estonian customs official; the bride of a Russian priest gone missing in Poland; a German spy made rich by an oligarch. Czar Peter the Great features as well, as does »the Flying Dutchman« and Hercules of the North. And so begins Veniamin Jasytschnik's journey of adventure. Where does it lead?

Perhaps to Vineta, to the legendary underwater city of happiness and riches in the Baltic Sea – a close relative of the city of St. Petersburg, as it happens. And finally the nostalgic hero can release himself from the bounds of his late-Soviet upbringing.

»You can read Russian Cargo as St Petersburg's answer to Sorokin, as a poetic and ironic counter-vision of society that replaces brutality with bizarreness and a lust for power with dreams. ... It’s hard to know whether this novel is a quirky take on a spy thriller, a maritime adventure, a story of amour fou or a love letter to St Petersburg – probably all of the above.« Nicole Henneberg, Frankfurter Rundschau
»You can read Russian Cargo as St Petersburg's answer to Sorokin, as a poetic and ironic counter-vision of society that replaces brutality with bizarreness and a lust for power with dreams. ... It’s hard to know whether this novel is a quirky take on a spy thriller, a maritime adventure, a story of amour fou or a love letter to St Petersburg – probably all of the above.« Nicole Henneberg, Frankfurter Rundschau
2009, 220 pages
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Oleg Jurjew (1959–2018) was a Russian-German poet, essayist, playwright and author. He lived in Frankfurt/Main from 1991 until his death in 2018.

Oleg Jurjew (1959–2018) was a Russian-German poet, essayist, playwright and author. He lived in Frankfurt/Main from 1991 until his death in...


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Spanish Latin American rights (Universidad Veracruzana)