*Snow, concrete, the KGB: that's the cliché of the Soviet Union. But its collapse in 1991 sparked a story at once messier and more compelling than any stereotype. Thirty-five years on, Moscow may brim with champagne bars and blacked-out Mercedes – but what became of the other fourteen states that emerged from the ashes?

In the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Joe Luc Barnes crossed the former USSR to find out, from the gleaming towers of Azerbaijan to the former gulags of Kazakhstan, tech-hungry Estonia to the minarets of Uzbekistan. Along the way, he finds epic mountains, cobblestoned old towns and storied Silk Road cities – not to mention Georgian wine, Armenian brandy and vodka in industrial supply.

Travelling thousands of miles, he gathers a chorus of voices: nomads in mountain yurts, TikTok-fuelled activists, small-town taxi drivers and many who still look uneasily over their shoulder for the secret police. With insight, empathy and a healthy dose of mordant wit, he asks what has happened – and why – to the people and their hopes and dreams since the great promise of independence.