The cover of Victoria Donovan's excellent book features an architectural complex with the distinctive feel of old Russian architecture. According to the credits, it is the Pskov Kremlin Complex and Trinity Cathedral. The image is not exactly postcard quality, as the buildings are partly obscured by trees and, moreover, on the bottom, there are figures one does not usually find on postcards: two middle-aged women in bathing suits, with their backs to the viewer, looking across the river at the monumental emblems of the Russian past. This cover provides an apt metaphor for the book, which examines the architectural history of the Russian northwest as a locale of patriotic myth-making and as a lived environment.

This book joins the growing field of regional and provincial studies, which explores the issues of representation and identity, nationalism, cultural mythology, branding, and local histories. Donovan firmly carves her own path by taking a socio-anthropological approach and keeping her focus on architectural history. She uses a variety of texts, from government decrees to tourist guides, from novels to interviews with the region's residents. The study proceeds chronologically from post-war to post-Soviet. Donovan focuses on three cities: Pskov, Novgorod, and Vologda. This is the story of how official policies of rebuilding and preservation combined, or conflicted, with the efforts of local preservationists, and created the myth of the northwest as the locale of authentically Russian democracy, sacrifice, and patriotism.

Chapter 1 discusses the challenges of post-war reconstruction, and the reasons why the northwest was “singled out” as the main actor in the state narrative of patriotism and resilience. War ruins, used in propaganda efforts during the war, were to be restored into sites of celebration of wartime heroism and victory. Especially interesting, here and throughout the book, is Donovan's discussion of the tension between central and local actors’ visions of the composition of restored cityscapes. The story of the restoration of Novgorod's St. Sophia is illustrative of Soviet patriotic reconstruction and the political values attached to restoring local architectural monuments as national treasures. Chapter 2 looks at the Khrushchev era and the growing prominence of the concept and practice of museum-zapovedniks. Improved tourist infrastructure ensured that museums became places where political, cultural, and local significance cohered. Tourists and residents of the northwest developed a heightened awareness of the region's cultural status and learned the language of the debates on the value and proper uses of national heritage. In the Brezhnev era (Chapter 3) the language of preservation debates fused with the ethno-nationalist discourse of the time. This chapter discusses how wooden folk architecture was celebrated in the state-sponsored performance of Russian cultural identity. This is also where Donovan analyzes literary texts: the village prose of Vladimir Solouhkin, Aleksandr Iashin, and Vasilii Belov, whose works she interprets as acts of cultural preservation, on par with the practical work of museum collectives and local preservationists.

Part II (Chapters 4–6) discusses post-Soviet practices and metaphors of architectural heritage preservation. In the 1990s, the main factors were the privatization of the heritage economy and its commodification. Another important source of contention was the growing influence of the Russian Orthodox Church and re-consecration of the churches and artworks that were previously considered state museums’ property. The accompanying discourse operates with the familiar notions of true Russianness, authenticity, and patriotism. The Putin era's revival of a state-led nation-building effort ensures the northwest's continuous importance to the performance of national identity. The last chapter gives voice to the local residents: their take on living in towns where national treasures form an intimate part of their domestic landscape.

The book's scope is large but is nicely anchored in the balance between various lines of inquiry: state politics and local interests; official decrees and personal stories of preservation enthusiasts, residents, writers, and museum guides; strategies of building patriotic consciousness in different historical periods, and details of particular monuments’ history. This meticulously researched and well-written book is a valuable addition to the field of study of Soviet and post-Soviet national myths and symbols.