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Summary: Tragic poem
Review: A simple, small book without compromise. Intensely personal, it seems that Delahaye has photographed not with conscious thought, but with simple feeling. It is the most honest photography book for me since The Americans, and Delahaye's birch tree closing sequence is the saddest letdown and most pefect ending to a photo book i have ever seen.
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Summary: surreal and tragically beautiful
Review: as another reviewer wrote, this is a tragic poem. this work is beautiful, and considering the time this work took (under a year), the language and cultural barriers the photographer had to deal with, and the difficulty of the subject matter, it is a wonder to be studied by any serious student of photography. i can't remember a recent book which has undertaken such a difficult task and done so with near perfect results.
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Summary: A great piece of work
Review: Certainly the best work on Russia in years. A must.
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Summary: chapeau bas, luc
Review: delahaye's book is to color what robert frank's americans was to rythmical structure in photography books. this is with no doubt one of the very few major PJ books to have been published in recent years. delahaye's brilliant visual language creates an impact that grows and grows, without resourcing to the brute-force tactics of nachtwey's inferno or salgado's alluring mannerism. this masterpiece is all about subtelty. about finesse. about how you can take a picture that is sufficiently understandable to be published in the mainstream press yet is sufficiently subtle to help slowly educate a non-photography savy crowd. expect the trend to grow in the future. this is photojournalism as you're going to see it in the next decade. buy it. now.
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Summary: An amazingly accurate picture of Russia today.
Review: Everyone has seen the Russia of fairytales in storied picture books, but Luc Delahaye seems to be the first photographer to cut through the glossy exterior of a time long gone by to show the Russia of today. I've spent nearly 5 years in this country and get chills when looking through this book as it reminds me of so many images I saw first-hand here. My own journals from my time here don't even come close to Luc Delahaye's depiction of what more than 70 years of a system gone wrong can do to a society.
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Summary: in a word..incredible
Review: I have never seen a photography book where every picture has been perfection - absoultely fascinating. The colors, the cropping the layout is truly incredible. I am amazing and moved by every image. If you are looking for a gift for someone who likes photography, this is amazing. it is all natural light and the subject matter is depresing, but the pitcures are so incredible, you will look at it over and over again. hightly recommended
Rating: 
Summary: Rusophobia in gloss
Review: Some people like to watch human body to be dissected. They are called perverts and in most countries they are punished by law. Luc Delahaye likes to take pictures of dissected country. He is rewarded with a book published, numerous awards and praising reviews. Well, obviously many people on the West enjoy watching dirt-digging and trash collection in Russia. It is not that there is something entirely different in poorest decaying coal-mining cities of Russia from their counterparts in Great Britain. The same and even more impressive pictures could be found practically anywhere. Take for example progressing deindustrialisation in South Africa, look at the pictures of extreme poverty and empty rusting industry building there. No, this will not be so enjoyable and "politically correct". Russia is the only country, which is completely excluded from political correctness, about which it is possible to publish any slander and any defamation possible. If you do enjoy looking at the worms on the wounded bodies, buy this book, you won't be disappointed.
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Summary: winterreise
Review: There is no doubt that Luc Delahaye is one of the more formidable photojournalists today and there cannot be any serious criticism of his style and dedication to producing strong images. His book, 'Winterreise', is a well produced book and its smaller than usual format does not affect the impact of the pictures. However, I found one problem with this work - it is immensely depressing. In my opinion this book is a highly professional, well documented study of poverty and abject misery . Moving through the book, one wonders in what mental state the photographer ended up after having spent so much time in such an oppresively miserable environment. Having completed my first look of the book, I immediately thought that Delahaye should have titled the work, 'Misery'. I must emphasise again that there is nothing poor about the quality of 'Winterreise'. The book meets the highest standards of photojournalism and documentary reporting. Yet it is so depressing that I find myself avoiding it.
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Summary: TICKET IN THE WRONG DIRECTION OR A TRIP WITH BLINDS ON?
Review: This book is not about art, and not about photojournalism. It is a reflection of the pain that a person, who photographed so many wars, and has seen so much deaths and drama has inside of him. I have spent a number of years myself in different war zones and know how hard it is to adopt to real life. Sad to see a talented photographer coming to Russia to do a book on drunks and junkies as if there is nothing else worth to notice in such a great land.
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Summary: Seek and you shell find...
Review: This book will tell you more about the author than about his subject... As someone who lived in the Soviet Union for 22 years, and someone who still visits Russia at least 3 times a year, I have one word for the this book - "chernucha" (Russian word for something that is deliberately made to be depressing by concentrating on the negative). The author has spent all this time in Russia, and this is all he found worthy of photographing?!?! I guess some people can only find inspiration in human depravity. If you like photography, you will enjoy it, because the pictures are masterful. But if you are looking for a balanced photojournalistic account, stay far away.
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