Where Two Rivers Meet Russian Windows on the Gospel, by Nicola Vidamour and Pádraig Ó Tuama (foreword)

Nicola Vidamour is a British Methodist minister who served in Pskov, Russia for six years. When she was feeling homesick, she would either go to the place in the city where two rivers meet or visit her favourite icons in the local museum. Nicola enables us to look through the windows of these icons and discover more about life in Russia and the way in which the gospel can be read through Russian eyes. Excerpts from Russian literature enter into dialogue with biblical texts. Through a mixture of memoir, theological reflection and spiritual insights, Nicola also invites us to think about where two rivers meet in our own lives and shares some of the paired streams which flow within her. These include Russian and English, Orthodoxy and Methodism, heaven and earth, poetry and prose, body and soul. In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Where Two Rivers Meet provides a helpful foreigner’s guide to life in a Russian provincial town and offers much-needed assurance that the “other” can become a friend.