Vitali Vitaliev

Passport to Enclavia: Travels in Search of a European Identity Vitali Vitaliev

Acclaimed writer Vitali Vitaliev takes a personal journey through Europe's forgotten enclaves, tiny fragments of countries cut off and completely surrounded by another. Stuck for centuries between two different cultures, currencies and (at times) languages, each enclave features fascinating idiosyncrasies of everyday life, making these geographical and historical anomalies perfect destinations for an inquisitive, knowledge-hungry traveller.

An enclave in his own right, Vitaliev, a Ukrainian-born Russian with Australian and British citizenship, travels in search of his own elusive identity and in search of what makes Europeans truly unique. He goes to Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Italy and Austria, setting out just as the European identity is being imposed from Brussels through the Euro.

An acclaimed investigative journalist, Vitali was able to uncover the roots of the current EU crisis ten years ago, just when the Euro was being introduced. This makes his book extremely topical and surprisingly up-to-date, particularly now that campaigning has started in earnest for Britain's EU referendum, making a convincing, yet witty and didactic, case for Brexit.