The White Birch

<p><b>''It has been hand-planted by Tsarinas and felled by foresters. It has been celebrated by peasants, worshipped by pagans and painted by artists. It has self-seeded across mountains and rivers and train tracks and steppe and right through the ruined modernity of a nuclear fall-out site. And like all symbols, the story of the birch has its share of horrors (white, straight, native, pure: how could it not?). But, maybe in the end, what I''m really in search of is a birch that means nothin stripped of symbolism, bereft of use-value . . . A birch that is simply a tree in a land that couldn''t give a shit.''</b><br><br>The birch, genus <i>Betula,</i> is one of the northern hemisphere''s most widespread and easily recognisable trees. A pioneer species, the birch is also Russia''s unofficial national emblem, and in <i>The White Birch</i> art critic Tom Jeffreys sets out to grapple with the riddle of Russianness through numerous journeys, encounters, histories and artworks that all share one thing in common: the humble birch tree.<br><br>We visit Catherine the Great''s garden follies and Tolstoy''s favourite chair; walk through the Chernobyl exclusion zone and among overgrown concrete bunkers in Vladivostok; explore the world of online Russian brides and spend a drunken night in Moscow with art-activists Pussy Riot, all the time questioning the role played by Russia''s vastly diverse landscapes in forming and imposing national identity. And vice-versa: how has Russia''s dramatically shifting self-image informed the way its people think about nature, land and belonging?<br><br>Curious, resonant and idiosyncratic, <i>The White Birch</i> is a unique collection of journeys into Russia and among Russian people.</p>