Along the Trenches A Journey through Eastern Europe to Isfahan

Between Germany and Russia is a region strewn with monuments to the horrors of war, genocide and disaster – the bloodlands where the murderous regimes of Hitler and Stalin unleashed the violence that scarred the twentieth century and shaped so much of the world we know today. In September 2016 the German-Iranian writer Navid Kermani set out to discover this land and to travel along the trenches that are now re-emerging in Europe, from his home in Cologne through eastern Germany to the Baltics, and from there south to the Caucasus and to Isfahan in Iran, the home of his parents.  

This beautifully written travel diary, enlivened by conversations with the people Kermani meets along the way, brings to life the tragic history of these troubled lands and shows how this history leaves its traces in the present. It will be of great interest to anyone concerned with current affairs and with the events that have shaped, and continue to shape, the world in which we live today.

Navid Kermani is a writer and scholar who lives in Cologne, Germany. He has received numerous accolades for his literary and academic work, including the 2015 Peace Prize of the German Publishers’ Association, Germany’s most prestigious cultural award.

Contents
Cologne
First Day: Schwerin
Second Day: From Berlin to Wroc aw
Third Day: Auschwitz
Fourth Day: Cracow
Fifth Day: From Cracow to Warsaw
Sixth Day: Warsaw
Seventh Day: Warsaw
Eighth Day: From Warsaw to Masuria
Ninth Day: Kaunas
Tenth Day: Vilnius and Vicinity
Eleventh Day: Via Paneriai to Minsk
Twelfth Day: Minsk and Khatyn
Thirteenth Day: Into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
Fourteenth Day: Kurapaty and Minsk
Fifteenth Day: Into the Exclusion Zone East of Krasnapolle
Sixteenth Day: From Minsk to Kiev
Seventeenth Day: Kiev
Eighteenth Day: From Kiev to Dnipro
Nineteenth Day: To the Front in Donbas
Twentieth Day: Via Mariupol to the Black Sea
Twenty-first Day: Along the Black Sea to Odessa
Twenty-second Day: Odessa
Twenty-third Day: Leaving Odessa by Air
Twenty-fourth Day: Via Moscow to Simferopol
Twenty-fifth Day: Via Bakhtshyssarai to Sevastopol
Twenty-sixth Day: Along the Crimean Coast
Twenty-seventh Day: From Crimea to the Russian Mainland
Twenty-eighth Day: To Krasnodar
Twenty-ninth Day: From Krasnodar to Grozny
Thirtieth Day: Grozny
Thirty-first Day: In the Chechen Mountains
Thirty-second Day: From Grozny to Tbilisi
Thirty-third Day: Tbilisi
Thirty-fourth Day: Tbilisi
Thirty-fifth Day: To Gori and the Georgian-Ossetian Cease-fire Line
Thirty-sixth Day: From Tbilisi to Kakheti
Thirty-seventh Day: From Kakheti to Azerbaijan
Thirty-eighth Day: Along the Azeri-Armenian Cease-fire Line
Thirty-ninth Day: By Night Train to Baku
Fortieth Day: Baku
Forty-first Day: Baku and Qobustan
Forty-second Day: Leaving Baku by Air
Forty-third Day: Yerevan
Forty-fourth Day: Yerevan
Forty-fifth Day: To Lake Sevan and On to Nagorno-Karabakh
Forty-sixth Day: Through Nagorno-Karabakh
Forty-seventh Day: To the Armenian-Azeri Cease-fire Line and On to Iran
Forty-eighth Day: Via Jolfa to Tabriz
Forty-ninth Day: Via Ahmadabad to Alamut Castle
Fiftieth Day: To the Caspian Sea and On to Tehran
Fifty-first Day: Tehran
Fifty-second Day: Tehran
Fifty-third Day: Tehran
Fifty-fourth Day: Flying Out of Tehran
With Family in Isfahan
The Journey Begins
Acknowledgements
Bibliography