"The change in people's mentality is that people start to believe in change. That it's not impossible to change Russia into a modern country."
— Peter Knauer, Managing Director of the Cadbury chocolate company in Chudovo
A little more than two hundred years ago, a member of the Russian gentry with a social conscience drove along the road that passes from St. Petersburg to Moscow.
He took notes on what he saw, and turned his reporting into an impassioned plea for reform. For this he was exiled to Siberia—despairing of any changes he finally committed suicide. He became a martyr for future generations of Russian reformers and revolutionaries.
Every Russian knows his name—Aleksandr Radishchev (pronounced Rah-DEE-shev) and his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow has long been required classroom reading. With a copy of Radishchev's book as her guide, NPR's Anne Garrels recently retraced his journey. Here is her report.
