20th-century Russian history comes to life through six generations of a family in their Moscow apartment The Apartment: A Century of Russian History explains the true history of 20th-century Russia through the fictitious story of a Moscow family and their apartment. The Muromtsev family have been living in the same apartment for more than a century, generation after generation. Readers are taken through different rooms and witness how each generation actually lived alongside the larger social and political changes that Russia experienced. A search-and-find element has readers looking for objects from page to page to see which items were passed down through the generations. Beautifully illustrated with minute details, this book helps readers engage with Russia’s history in an all new way. The book includes a timeline, glossary, bibliography, and index.

On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment. Written in the tradition of Tolstoy's War and Peace, Grossman’s Life and Fate, and Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, Yuri Slezkine’s gripping narrative tells the true story of the residents of an enormous Moscow apartment building where top Communist officials and their families lived before they were destroyed in Stalin’s purges. A vivid account of the personal and public lives of Bolshevik true believers, the book begins with their conversion to Communism and ends with their children’s loss of faith and the fall of the Soviet Union. Completed in 1931, the House of Government, later known as the House on the Embankment, was located across the Moscow River from the Kremlin. The largest residential building in Europe, it combined 505 furnished apartments with public spaces that included everything from a movie theater and a library to a tennis court and a shooting range. Slezkine tells the chilling story of how the building’s residents lived in their apartments and ruled the Soviet state until some eight hundred of them were evicted from the House and led, one by one, to prison or their deaths. Drawing on letters, diaries, and interviews, and featuring hundreds of rare photographs, The House of Government weaves together biography, literary criticism, architectural history, and fascinating new theories of revolutions, millennial prophecies, and reigns of terror. The result is an unforgettable human saga of a building that, like the Soviet Union itself, became a haunted house, forever disturbed by the ghosts of the disappeared.

When the British journalist Rachel Polonsky moves to Moscow, she discovers an apartment on Romanov Street that was once home to the Soviet elite. One of the most infamous neighbors was the ruthless apparatchik Vyacheslav Molotov, a henchman for Stalin who was a participant in the collectivizations and the Great Purge—and also an ardent bibliophile. In what was formerly Molotov's apartment, Polonsky uncovers an extensive library and an old magic lantern—two things that lead her on an extraordinary journey throughout Russia and ultimately renew her vision of the country and its people. In Molotov's Magic Lantern, Polonsky visits the haunted cities and vivid landscapes of the books from Molotov's library: works by Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Akhmatova, and others, some of whom were sent to the Gulag by the very man who collected their books. With exceptional insight and beautiful prose, Polonsky writes about the longings and aspirations of these Russian writers and others in the course of her travels from the Arctic to Siberia and from the forests around Moscow to the vast steppes. A singular homage to Russian history and culture, Molotov's Magic Lantern evokes the spirit of the great artists and the haunted past of a country ravaged by war, famine, and totalitarianism.

A veteran writer on Russia and the Soviet Union explains why Russia refuses to draw from the lessons of its past and what this portends for the future Russia today is haunted by deeds that have not been examined and words that have been left unsaid. A serious attempt to understand the meaning of the Communist experience has not been undertaken, and millions of victims of Soviet Communism are all but forgotten. In this book David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent and longtime writer on Russia and the Soviet Union, presents a striking new interpretation of Russia's great historical tragedy, locating its source in Russia's failure fully to appreciate the value of the individual in comparison with the objectives of the state. Satter explores the moral and spiritual crisis of Russian society. He shows how it is possible for a government to deny the inherent value of its citizens and for the population to agree, and why so many Russians actually mourn the passing of the Soviet regime that denied them fundamental rights. Through a wide-ranging consideration of attitudes toward the living and the dead, the past and the present, the state and the individual, Satter arrives at a distinctive and important new way of understanding the Russian experience.

WINNER OF THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTION FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS WINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, LOS ANGELES TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, BOSTON GLOBE, SEATTLE TIMES, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, NEWSWEEK, PASTE, and POP SUGAR The essential journalist and bestselling biographer of Vladimir Putin reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia surrendered to a more virulent and invincible new strain of autocracy. Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own--as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, and against the war it waged on understanding itself, which ensured the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today's terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time.

Powerful and moving, A Visit to Moscow is inspired by the true experience of an American rabbi who travels to the Soviet Union in the 1960s, a dangerous time of uncertainty and fear for Jews in the nation. One of Jewish Insider's Ten Books to Read in May Yevgenia Nayberg has been longlisted for the 2022 Brightness Illustration Awards! "With starkly dramatic text and haunting images, author and illustrator convey the devastating oppression of Soviet Jewish life, and the commitment of one Jew to bring their horrifying reality into the light [...] Whether readers are familiar with the harrowing subject matter or learning about it for the first time, Rabbi Grossman's story will immerse them in a harsh world and in the persistent truth-telling needed to bring about change. A Visit to Moscow is highly recommended." —Jewish Book Council "Finally, it’s worth mentioning a soon-to-be-released graphic narrative called A Visit to Moscow. Adapted by Anna Olswanger from an account by Rabbi Rafael Grossman (1933-2018), the book was inspired by Grossman’s actual 1965 journey to the Soviet Union to investigate the persecution of Soviet Jews. That A Visit to Moscow is beautifully illustrated by Yevgenia Nayberg, who was born in Ukraine and now lives in New Jersey, makes this encounter with the history of the Soviet Jewry movement, which was so much a part of the later 20th-century American Jewish experience, especially poignant and timely." —Moment Magazine "Inspired by real events, the eye-opening and important narrative in this graphic novel are punctuated by the phenomenal illustrations, showing Jewish life in the Soviet Union. Set in 1965, readers will see the power of antisemitism and the incredible courage it takes to live a life of faith under oppression. It shows that, despite living with tyranny and unimaginable sacrifices, one can hold on to their soul and that there is beauty to be found. It’s my hope readers will see how critical it is for us to advocate for others and do whatever we can to make a positive difference in this world." —Wisonsin Jewish Chronicle "Yevgenia Nayberg’s art is evocative and claustrophobic and lives in that liminal space between simple children’s book illustration and profound abstract comics work. Her choices in coloring are particularly well-matched to the emotional tone of the narrative. This is ultimately a story of hope—how the actions of one person can reverberate through generations to come—and as story, this is appropriate and uplifting." —SOLRAD In 1965, an American rabbi travels to the Soviet Union to investigate reports of persecution of the Jewish community. Moscow welcomes him as a guest—but provides a strict schedule he and the rest of his group must follow. One afternoon, the rabbi slips away. With an address in hand and almost no knowledge of the Russian language, he embarks on a secret journey that will change his life forever. Inspired by the true experience of Rabbi Rafael Grossman, A Visit to Moscow captures the formidable perseverance and strength of the Jewish people during the "Let My People Go" movement, a modern exodus that is often overlooked.

Drawing on a huge range of sources - letters, memoirs, conversations - Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin. Those who shaped the political system became, very frequently, its victims. Those who were its victims were frequently quite blameless. The Whisperers recreates the sort of maze in which Russians found themselves, where an unwitting wrong turn could either destroy a family or, perversely, later save it: a society in which everyone spoke in whispers - whether to protect themselves, their families, neighbours or friends - or to inform on them.