Vladimir Mechislavovich Rybakov / Wladimir Secinski (; 29 September 1947 – 20 August 2018) was a Russian writer. Vladimir was born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in 1947. He lived in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

1956–1972, including a hitch in the

Soviet Army The Soviet Ground Forces () was the land warfare service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992. It was preceded by the Red Army. After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under th ...

, and returned to the West in 1972, since which time he has been a journalist and a novelist with a historical bent. He spent much of the 1980s in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

, where, among other things, he interviewed Soviet soldiers captured by the Afghans. He spent 1989–1995 in Moscow and spent the last years of his life in

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

, where he completed a huge historical novel about

Genghis Khan Genghis Khan (born Temüjin; August 1227), also known as Chinggis Khan, was the founder and first khan (title), khan of the Mongol Empire. After spending most of his life uniting the Mongols, Mongol tribes, he launched Mongol invasions and ...

. At the time of his death he was preparing a book on how Eastern and Western civilizations developed. Two of his books, ''The Afghans'', a novella about Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan, and ''Creature'', a geopolitical thriller, have been published recently in English (2004 and 2005, respectively), and ''The Mystery of Genghis Khan'' is being prepared for publication.

English translations

*''The Brand'', Hutchinson, 1986. *''The Burden'', Hutchinson, 1986. *''The Afghans: A Novella of Soviet Soldiers in Afghanistan'', Infinity Publishing, 2004. *''Creature: A French Russian Thriller'', Infinity Publishing, 2005.

References

Russian male journalists Russian male novelists 1947 births 2018 deaths {{Russia-writer-stub