Timo Laine presents his book Tanks and Roaches. The Collapse of the Socialist System as Seen from the Inside (2014), which takes in the heart of events that were the focus of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The discussion evolves around the breakup of the Soviet imperium, the nature of the Soviet state, communist ideology, cultural differences and ethnic conflicts. Laine has continued his travels in present-day post-Soviet countries participating in demonstrations and democratic processes and observing the cleavage between everyday life reality and media landscape distorted by disinformation.
Timo Laine is a Finnish author and expert of Eastern European political history. Laine lives in Prague and works at Charles University as teacher of Finnish language and culture. As a young student living in Estonia and travelling around Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the early 1990’s, he eyewitnessed the collapse of the real socialism, entering conflict zones and gaining access to areas normally closed off to foreigners.
In English.
