Eight pieces of empire: a 20-year journey through the Soviet collapse

Pt. 1: Farewell Leningrad, farewell empire (1989-1991). A civil war outside my door ; Our communal ; Tears of a KGB man ; A bigamist bandit and a button maker ; Sickle and hammer down : an empire's last hours

Pt. 2: Georgia : anarchy in paradise (1992-1996). Nobody started this war ; Exodus ; Buried five times : insurgents in flat black nylons ; A word about war

Pt. 3: Azerbaijan and Armenia at war (1993-1995). Azerbaijan : lifesaving carpets ; Armenia : a faded tintype of mount Ararat ; Azerbaijan : the Shish Kebab War and Eastern democracy

Pt. 4: Chechnya : echoes of the deportation (1993-2004). Grenade, lightly tossed ; Grozny ; Three libertine sabotage women ; A disappearance ; Three boys seeking martyrdom

Pt. 5: Resurrections : the abdication of atheism (1998-2005). A nameless bunch of bones ; A KGB church and latter-day saints

Pt. 6: Central Asia : rise of the red sultans (2001-2002). Uzbekistan : I cannot answer that question ; An Afghan interlude ; The island of Dr. Moreau

Pt. 7: Revolutions, reindeer, and radiation (2003-2011). The flaming recliner ; Last song of the Ultas ; Home, sweet Chernobyl ; The road to the schoolhouse

Pt. 8: An empire epilogue.