Against the Grain of Businesss and Politics

Alexender Mamut's current interest in Waterstone's bookstore in some ways goes against the grain of strategic investment by Russian oligarchs, although the British media has recently become a focus of attention.

Mr Mamut was a key supporter of First Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and is now regarded as one of the oligarchs closest to Prime Minister Putin.

Boris's Bookshelf received a copy of Mr Yeltin's autobiography, "Against the Grain", as a gift at the time of publication, and we read it with great interest.

Former President Yeltsin, who died in 2007, became identified with the political and economic problems suffered by Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States following the breakup of the Soviet Union.

However, it may well be that without the intervention of Boris Yeltin in rallying opposition to a military coup in 1991 Russia would not have accomplished the transition from communism to a market economy.

The rest, as they say, is history; and had this been different Alexander Mamut might not be investing against the grain in Waterstone's bookstore

MY DANCING WHITE HORSES

The equestrian pomp and circumstance of the recent British Royal Wedding has reminded Boris of another book whose reading is incomplete: Alois Podhajsky's "My Dancing White Horses".

An autobiography by the former, and perhaps best known, director of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, this book deals with the tumultuous events of the first part of the twentieth century from the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire as a consequence of the First World War, through events leading to World War II, to the re-building of Europe in its aftermath.

"My Dancing White Horses" is testimony to how a great passion - in Podhajsky's case horses and the Spanish Riding School - can sustain people through the most difficult circumstances.

Writing the Century - The Iron Curtain

We found the latest BBC Radio 4 "Writing the Century" drama about the 1980s  love affair of Paula, an English teacher, and Knut, an East German doctor, very moving.

MAY DAY 2011 - BORIS & FRIEND JANET