Through Dark Days and White Nights: Four Decades Observing a Changing Russia

Speaker: Dr. Naomi Collins and Ambassador James Collins

Dr. Naomi Collins spent over 40 years visiting and observing Russia and witnessed firsthand the immense changes the country has gone through. Her book Through Dark Days and White Nights: Four Decades Observing a Changing Russia is an insightful and intimate eyewitness-account, giving glimpses of what life was like in the Soviet Union through the lens of an American woman. This account is singular, among other aspects, because it portrays everyday life in the USSR and Russia over the timespan of four decades, through the eyes of a woman who started as a graduate student in Moscow State University and ended up as the wife of the American Ambassador to Russia.

Rather than retracing the economic and political events of the period, Collins focuses her narrative on daily life as it changed over the years. She offers fascinating anecdotal snapshots that reveal rare insight into the evolving state of the nation.

Naomi F. Collins is a writer and consultant to cultural and higher education organizations. She has served as Executive Director (and before that, Chair) of the Maryland Humanities Council, the Maryland affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and then as Executive Director of NAFSA: Association of International Educators. Her book Through Dark Days and White Nights: Four Decades Observing a Changing Russia was recently featured on The Passenger podcast.

Dr. Collins has served/serves on the Board and Executive Committee of the Arts and Humanities Council, the Literacy Council of Montgomery County, The Writer’s Center, and the Bethesda Metro Area Village.

Ambassador James Collins, a retired career member of the U.S. Foreign Service, served as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation from 1997 to 2001. Prior to that assignment, he held positions as Ambassador-at-Large and Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for the New Independent States in the mid-1990s, and as deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires at the American Embassy, Moscow from 1990 to 1993. In addition to three diplomatic postings in Moscow, he also served in the American Embassy in Amman, Jordan and the Consulate General in Izmir, Turkey; positions in the European and Near East bureaus and the executive offices at the Department of State; and on the National Security Council Staff at the White House.

Following retirement from government service, Ambassador Collins worked as Senior Advisor at the public law and policy practice group Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, L.L.P. prior to joining the Carnegie endowment in 2007. He has been active on the boards of non-profit organizations concerned with U.S. foreign policy and U.S. relations with Russia, East Europe and Eurasia, serving presently on the boards of the U.S.-Russia Foundation, the U.S.-Russia Business Council, and the Open World Leadership Center, and previously on the boards of the American Academy of Diplomacy, and American Councils for International Education.

He is the recipient of the Secretary of State’s Award for Distinguished Service; the Department of State’s Distinguished Honor Award; the Secretary of State’s Award for Career Achievement; the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the NASA Medal for Distinguished Service, and the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service.

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