Join Joe Luc Barnes in conversation with Thomas de Waal about his forthcoming book Farewell to Russia: A Journey Through the Former USSR – a political travelogue crossing all 15 states of the former USSR, from the gleaming skyscrapers of Azerbaijan to the former gulags of Kazakhstan, from the tech hubs of Estonia to wartime Kyiv. Along the way, Barnes brings together a chorus of voices that illuminate local histories, cultures and identities, societies’ experiences of the past 35 years, and the successes and challenges of independence.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, some countries have flourished, while others have faced economic turmoil, rebranded authoritarianism, or war. These are stories of compromise and survival, resistance and renewal, of shifting borders and alliances.

As the book illustrates, empires may fall, but their legacies linger. Each country has its own narratives of the Soviet past, and continues to be shaped in some way by the old elites or its relationships with Russia. Moreover, Cold War-era and Russocentric discourse still influence how outsiders understand these diverse countries. As Barnes delves into the last 35 years, he also considers what the future might hold for the so-called post-Soviet region.

Joe Luc Barnes spent six years living in former Soviet countries from 2014, has a Master's degree in Russian and East European Studies from Oxford University and now reports from the region as a journalist. His work has been published in outlets including the Financial Times, The I Paper, Nikkei, The Diplomat and the Times of Central Asia, where he is also an editor. He is the author of Farewell to Russia: A Journey Through The Former USSR (Elliott and Thompson, March 2026), which describes the visits he has made since February 2022 to all 15 former USSR republics.

Thomas de Waal is a scholar and writer, whose work centres around Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region. He is a Senior Fellow with Carnegie Europe and author of a number of publications, including The End of the Near Abroad (Carnegie Europe/IWM, 2024), Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (NYU Press, second edition 2013) and The Caucasus: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, second edition 2018). From 2010 to 2015, de Waal worked for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. Before that he worked extensively as a journalist for the BBC, The Moscow Times, The Times, and The Economist.

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