This book is about Russia but looks back across the border to Europe. It begins on a train traveling between St. Petersburg and Moscow and ends with a boat drifting off the Dalmatian coast. Alan Jude Moore was born in Duhlin. His poetry is widely published in Ireland and abroad and his fiction has been twice shortlisted for the Hennessy Literary Awards. Translations of his work have been published in Italy and Russia. His first collection of poetry. Black State Cars, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2004.