"Many people make assumptions about what life is like in Russia based on news stories or portrayals in movies and on TV. But what is life actually like for Russians? Readers find out in this thoroughly updated look at the intersections of history, politics, economics, geography, and culture in one of the most controversial countries on Earth. The detailed, objective text allows readers to think critically about life in Russia, and additional information...

Discusses the history of the Soviet Union, from the revolution of 1917, through the Lenin and Stalin eras and the rule of such leaders as Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev, up to the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

A chronicle of the Russian Civil War, from 1918 to 1921.

"The Story of Russia is a fresh approach to the thousand years of Russia's history, concerned as much with the ideas that have shaped how Russians think about their past as it is with the events and personalities comprising it. No other country has reimagined its own story so often, in a perpetual effort to stay in step with the shifts of ruling ideologies"--Dust jacket flap.

In a small, provincial town behind the Iron Curtain, Sasha lives in a house full of secrets, one of which is her own dream of becoming an actress. Before she leaves for Moscow to audition for drama school, Sasha discovers the hidden war journal of her uncle Kolya. His pages expose the official lies and the forbidden truth of Stalin's brutality. As a past secret comes to light, Sasha must decide if her dreams are truly worth the necessary sacrifice...

"From the moment of its founding, the USSR was reviled and admired, demonized and idealized. Many Jews saw the new society ushered in by the Russian Revolution as their salvation from shtetl life with its deprivations and deadly pogroms. But Soviet Russia was rife with antisemitism, and a Jewish boy growing up in Leningrad learned early, harsh, and enduring lessons. Unsparing and poignant, Mikhail Iossel's twenty stories of Soviet childhood and adulthood,...

Provides a detailed portrait of the former head of the Soviet Union focussing on his rise to power and use of terror to maintain his position.

In the madness of World War II, a dutiful Russian soldier is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to ten years in a Siberian labor camp. So begins this masterpiece of modern Russian fiction, a harrowing account of a man who has conceded to all things evil with dignity and strength.

Vollmann presents a mesmerizing series of intertwined paired stories that compare and contrast the moral decisions made by various figures (some famous, some infamous, some unknown) associated with the warring authoritarian cultures of Germany and the USSR from 1900-1968.

An early reader's guide to KGB spies, introducing Russian espionage history, famous agents such as Oleg Penkovsky, techniques such as dead drops, and the dangers all spies face.