Download or read book Days in the Caucasus written by Banine and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A scintillatingly witty memoir telling the story of a young woman's determined struggle for freedom This is the unforgettable memoir of an 'odd, rich, exotic' childhood, of growing up in Azerbaijan in the turbulent early twentieth century, caught between East and West, tradition and modernity. Banine remembers her luxurious home, with endless feasts of sweets and fruit; her beloved, flaxen-haired German governess; her imperious, swearing, strict Muslim grandmother; her bickering, poker-playing, chain-smoking relatives. She recalls how the Bolsheviks came, and they lost everything. How, amid revolution and bloodshed, she fell passionately in love, only to be forced into marriage with a man she loathed- until the chance of escape arrived.