Tomorrow You Go Home: One Man's Harrowing Imprisonment in a Modern-Day Russian Gulag

Book is pretty straightforward and non-eventful. Nothing really shocking except how screwed up Russia still is. The author gets busted for a tiny amt of hash and the Rooskies toss the book at him. He goes to a Gulag for foreign prisoners and tells a story of how he has to bribe the guards and other prisoners to help advance his parole date. I didn't learn anything worthwhile in the book other than the guards would rather you stay in as long as possible so that they can keep getting bribes from your family. Moral of the book is : Stay the hell away from Russia !!!!! Its an OK read, but there are much better books such as The Long Walk, I found God in soviet Russia, As far as my feet will carry me.

I felt like I was there for every minute of Tig's ordeal. Very well written and compelling. I hated to put the book down.

Simply put, I could not put this book down. The story gets going from the first page. You feel the hopes, fear, cold, hunger, pain and humanity of the author and fellow prisoners. Heart breaking at times but also uplifting and humorous, it is written in the first person account and is a wonderful and eye opening story. As a fan of this genre, I cannot recommend it enough.

So what happens when you enter a foreign country like Russia and find yourself in possession of trace amounts of drugs? Tig Hague found out the hard way and chronicled his experience in the book Tomorrow You Go Home: One Man's Harrowing Imprisonment in a Modern-Day Russian Gulag. No matter how bad you think a western justice system might be, you haven't seen "bad" until you're thrown into Russia's gulags, with no way out but to play the game by ever-changing rules. Tig Hague was a businessman working at the finance firm Garban Icap in London. His job involved international travel, and on this particular trip he was landing in Moscow for a three day trip to meet with clients. He came from a stag party on the weekend, where some hash was available and used by the partygoers. Hague had no qualms against using the drug, and in fact had left a very small amount in his jeans wrapped in paper, barely enough for a single joint. But he forgot about it as he packed his suitcase, only to remember it at the worst possible time, as Russian custom agents were conducting a random check of passengers exiting the airport. Looking like a well-off British traveler, the Russian agent was actually looking for a bribe from Hague to just keep things moving. Tired and irritable from his trip, Hague decided he didn't want to play that game, which led to a retaliatory search of every item in his suitcase. The hash showed up, and now Hague was labeled a drug smuggler and placed into the Russian "legal" system. Little did he expect that it would take two years before he saw his freedom again. While the embassy made all the right sounds about helping him out, they were really just working within the system to let things move to trial, hoping for an acquittal or minor fine. Hague kept trying to explain that he wasn't smuggling, and that this was really being blown out of proportion. By the time the case went to trial a couple of months later (with bail being denied during that time), the stated amount he was carrying was highly inflated, his confession of recreational hash use back home painted him as a major drug user, and he was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison. What follows is a two year nightmare of corrupt prison officials, horrid living conditions, illnesses that threatened his life, and emotional despair. The only thing that keeps him going is the undying love and efforts of his girlfriend (and future wife) Lucy, as she worked to keep pressure on the Russian legal system to release Hague. Reading Tomorrow, you can feel the emotional turmoil that Hague went through as he realized that there was no one there to help him out. He was fortunate to be befriended by a number of prisoners along the way who taught him the rules of survival and helped him manage his own fate from inside the prisons. The most harrowing part of the story is when he's transferred to Zone 22, a prison camp in Mordovia that is as primitive and desolate as any gulag you've read abou

An extremely interesting update to the apparently eternal theme of Russian prison camp Hell. But this one has a universal appeal that will grab you even if you know nothing and care less about Russia. I have read pretty much all the big famous prison memoirs of the 19th and 20th centuries, Russian and other. The story told here is by no stretch the most brutal or bloody among them, but it's a powerful riptide of reality that won't let you loose (I read it in a single sitting). This man's experience, more than any of the more outlandish specimens of the genre, will leave you with that churning feeling - This could happen to anybody. This could happen to me.