St. Petersburg's Winter Palace was once the supreme architectural symbol of Russia's autocratic government. Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it became the architectural symbol of St. Petersburg itself. The story of the palace illuminates the changing relationship between monarchs and their capital city during the last century and a half of Russian monarchy. In The Winter Palace and the People, Susan McCaffray examines interactions among those who helped to stage the ceremonial drama of monarchy, those who consumed the spectacle, and the monarchs themselves. In the face of a changing social landscape in their rapidly growing nineteenth-century capital, Russian monarchs reoriented their display of imperial and national representation away from courtiers and toward the urban public. When attacked at mid-century, monarchs retreated from the palace. As they receded, the public claimed the square and the artistic treasures in the Imperial Hermitage before claiming the palace itself. By 1917, the Winter Palace had come to be the essential stage for representing not just monarchy, but the civic life of the empire-nation. What was cataclysmic for the monarchy presented to those who staffed the palace and Hermitage not a disaster, but a new mission, as a public space created jointly by monarch and city passed from the one to the other. This insightful study will appeal to scholars of Russia and general readers interested in Russian history.

"In the face of a changing social landscape in their rapidly growing nineteenth-century capital, Russian monarchs reoriented their display of imperial and national representation away from courtiers and toward the urban public. When attacked at mid-century, monarchs retreated from the palace. As they receded, the public claimed the square and the artistic treasures in the Imperial Hermitage before claiming the palace itself. By 1917, the Winter Palace had come to be the essential stage for representing not just monarchy, but the civic life of the empire-nation. What was cataclysmic for the monarchy presented to those who staffed the palace and Hermitage not a disaster, but a new mission, as a public space created jointly by monarch and city passed from the one to the other. This insightful study will appeal to scholars of Russia and general readers interested in Russian history."--Amazon.

When Vavara, a young Polish orphan, arrives at the glittering, dangerous court of the Empress Elizabeth in St Petersburg, she is schooled in skills ranging from lock-picking to love-making, learning above all else to stay silent - and listen. Then Sophie, a vulnerable young princess, arrives from Prussia as a prospective bride for the Empress's heir. Set to spy on her, Vavara soon becomes her friend and confidante, and helps her navigate the illicit liaisons and the treacherous shifting allegiances of the court. But Sophie's destiny is to become the notorious Catherine the Great. Are her ambitions more lofty and far-reaching than anyone suspected, and will she stop at nothing to achieve absolute power?

The struggle--for power, wealth, and souls--in the crumbling Soviet Empire Passing through Florian's Gate...having discovered the Amber Room...T. Davis Bunn now takes his readers to the Winter Palace! Jeffrey Sinclair is on top of the world. He is growing in professional success in the antiques trade, in his spiritual quest for a better understanding of God, and in his love for the beautiful Katya. But his world is suddenly shaken when his mentor Alexander falls ill, leaving Jeffrey to take on new responsibilities. What begins as an enjoyable honeymoon visit to Monte Carlo, ends with a mysterious assignment to reclaim a deposed Russian nobleman's winter palace. Thrust into the turbulence of modern-day St. Petersburg, Jeffrey's search constantly links him to the riches of its tsarist history. Here he confronts the dangerous collusion that has emerged between former Communist Party members, KGB agents, and self-styled "Mafia" gangs of criminals and black-marketers. But most striking to him is the material and spiritual hunger which gnaws at the people. Who will meet this incredible need? And is it just the estate Count Markov seeks to recover, or is there something more?

Exactly 175 years ago, on the Senate Square in St. Petersburg, a failed uprising ignited a process that would, one red October, finally sweep the autocracy away. The Shadow of the Winter Palace recounts an extraordinary century of Russian history, a politically tempestuous time that was also a Golden Age of intellectual and artistic achievement—the century of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, of Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky. A master stylist and a distinguished historian, Edward Crankshaw limns dazzling portraits of the czars, the revolutionaries, and a host of other unforgettable characters—and provides a riveting, sweeping history "jam-packed with information about the past and implications for the present"(Atlantic Monthly).

DIVReed's passionately involved narrative captures the opening days of the Russian Revolution, the fall of the provisional government, the assault on the Winter Palace, Lenin's seizure of power, and other tumultuous events. /div

Can a woman ever really know herself if she doesn't know her mother? From the author of the smash-hit bestseller Firefly Lane and True Colors comes Kristin Hannah's powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past. Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time—and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya's life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother's life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.