Tom Masters

Tom first went to the Caucasus in 1999 when he absconded from a particularly dull university course in Russia and took a three-day train ride south. Getting drunk in the mountains and swimming in the Black Sea proved to be far more enjoyable than studying Russian grammar, and this led to a repeat visit in 2001. Since finally finishing his Russian degree at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London, Tom has worked in journalism, TV and radio. While accepting that he’ll probably spend the rest of his life visiting the former Soviet Union, he now wishes he’d studied Spanish.