Fearing for her life, she flees with their neighbor Akhmed—a failed physician—to the bombed-out hospital, where Sonja, the one remaining doctor, treats a steady stream of wounded rebels and refugees and mourns her missing sister. Over the course of five dramatic days, Akhmed and Sonja reach back into their pasts to unravel the intricate mystery of coincidence, betrayal, and forgiveness that unexpectedly binds them and decides their fate.With The English Patient's dramatic sweep and The Tiger's Wife's expert sense of place, Marra gives us a searing debut about the transcendent power of love in wartime, and how it can cause us to become greater than we ever thought possible.

    To contain secrets, American and Soviet leaders created plutopias--communities of nuclear families living in highly-subsidized, limited-access atomic cities. Fully employed and medically monitored, the residents of Richland and Ozersk enjoyed all the pleasures of consumer society, while nearby, migrants, prisoners, and soldiers were banned from plutopia--they lived in temporary "staging grounds" and often performed the most dangerous work at the plant. Brown shows that the plants' segregation of permanent and temporary workers and of nuclear and non-nuclear zones created a bubble of immunity, where dumps and accidents were glossed over and plant managers freely embezzled and polluted. In four decades, the Hanford plant near Richland and the Maiak plant near Ozersk each issued at least 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment--equaling four Chernobyls--laying waste to hundreds of square miles and contaminating rivers, fields, forests, and food supplies. Because of the decades of secrecy, downwind and downriver neighbors of the plutonium plants had difficulty proving what they suspected, that the rash of illnesses, cancers, and birth defects in their communities were caused by the plants' radioactive emissions. Plutopia was successful because in its zoned-off isolation it appeared to deliver the promises of the American dream and Soviet communism; in reality, it concealed disasters that remain highly unstable and threatening today.An untold and profoundly important piece of Cold War history, Plutopia invites readers to consider the nuclear footprint left by the arms race and the enormous price of paying for it.

    As always, he has a plan to help you have a meaningful cultural experience while you're there—even with just a few hours in port.Inside you'll find one-day itineraries for sightseeing at or near the major Northern Europe ports of call, including:Southampton and Dover (London)Le Havre (Paris and Normandy)Zeebrugge (Bruges and Brussels)AmsterdamOsloCopenhagenWarnemünde/Rostock (Berlin)StockholmHelsinkiTallinnSt. PetersburgRick Steves' Northern Europe Cruise Ports explains how to get into town from the cruise terminal, shares sightseeing tips, and includes self-guided walks and tours. You'll learn which destinations are best for an excursion—and which you can confidently visit on your own. You'll also get tips on booking a cruise, plus hints for saving time and money on the ship and in port.You can count on Rick Steves to tell you what you really need to know when cruising through Northern Europe.

    Fragile Empire is the fruit of Judah’s thorough research: a probing assessment of Putin’s rise to power and what it has meant for Russia and her people. Despite a propaganda program intent on maintaining the cliché of stability, Putin’s regime was suddenly confronted in December 2011 by a highly public protest movement that told a different side of the story. Judah argues that Putinism has brought economic growth to Russia but also weaker institutions, and this contradiction leads to instability. The author explores both Putin’s successes and his failed promises, taking into account the impact of a new middle class and a new generation, the Internet, social activism, and globalization on the president’s impending leadership crisis. Can Russia avoid the crisis of Putinism? Judah offers original and up-to-the-minute answers.

    This is the story of the Romanovs, from the Tsar who brought Russia from darkness into light, to one of the greatest female rulers in history, and ultimately to the death-marked royals who watched their empire crumble. PETER THE GREAT: Crowned at the age of 10, Peter embodied the greatest strengths and weaknesses of Russia while being at the very forefront of her development. CATHERINE THE GREAT: In 1762, Catherine rode out of St Petersburg at the head of an army to arrest her husband. Three months later, at the age of just 33, she became sole empress of the largest empire on earth. NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA: The story of Nicholas's political naivete, Alexandra's obsession with the corrupt mystic Rasputin, and little Alexis's brave struggle with haemophilia.

    Paullina Simons gives us a work of non-fiction as captivating and heart-wrenching as the lives of Tatiana and Alexander.Only a few chapters into writing her first story set in Russia, her mother country, Paullina Simons travelled to Leningrad (now St Petersburg) with her beloved Papa. What began as a research trip turned into six days that forever changed her life, the course of her family, and the novel that became THE BRONZE HORSEMAN. After a quarter-century away from her native land, Paullina and her father found a world trapped in yesteryear, with crumbling stucco buildings, entire families living in seven-square-metre communal apartments, and barren fields bombed so badly that nothing would grow there even fifty years later. And yet there were the spectacular white nights, the warm hospitality of family friends and, of course, the pelmeni and caviar.At times poignant, at times inspiring and funny, this is both a fascinating glimpse into the inspiration behind the epic saga, and a touching story of a family's history, a father and a daughter, and the fate of a nation.'Amazing book! Thank you Paullina for sharing your experience with us all!'- Kiki, Goodreads

    . . 1920, central Russia. The Red Terror tightens its hold. Kolya has deserted his Red Army unit and returns home to bury his brother and reunite with his wife and sons. But he finds the village silent and empty. The men have been massacred in the forest. The women and children have disappeared.In this remote, rural Russian community the folk tales that mothers tell their children by candlelight take on powerful significance, and the terrifying legend of Koschei, The Deathless One, begins to feel very real. Kolya sets out on a journey through dense, haunting forests and across vast plains against the bitter winter, in the desperate hope he will find his wife and two boys-and find them alive. But there are very dark things in Kolya's past. And, as he strives to find his family, there's someone-or something-following his trail . . .

    She appears in traditional Russian folktales as a monstrous and hungry cannibal, or as a canny inquisitor of the adolescent hero or heroine of the tale. In new translations and with an introduction by Sibelan Forrester, Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales is a selection of tales that draws from the famous collection of Aleksandr Afanas'ev, but also includes some tales from the lesser-known nineteenth-century collection of Ivan Khudiakov. This new collection includes beloved classics such as "Vasilisa the Beautiful" and "The Frog Princess," as well as a version of the tale that is the basis for the ballet "The Firebird."The preface and introduction place these tales in their traditional context with reference to Baba Yaga's continuing presence in today's culture--the witch appears iconically on tennis shoes, tee shirts, even tattoos. The stories are enriched with many wonderful illustrations of Baba Yaga, some old (traditional "lubok" woodcuts), some classical (the marvelous images from Victor Vasnetsov or Ivan Bilibin), and some quite recent or solicited specifically for this collection

    Homeless (an illegal condition in the communist utopia), in and out of prison camps, almost always drunk, and with a gift for hilariously sending up the tragic absurdities of Soviet life, Ivan was a real-life Svejk. This is his unforgettable story, as told to Caroline Walton just before his death.

    These hugely popular and influential books document the Russian criminal tattoo, revealing its hidden meanings. The motifs depicted represent the uncensored lives of the criminal classes, whose tattoos were a secret tribal language, a method of showing status within the prison system. By turn they are extraordinary, artful, explicit and sometimes just strange, reflecting as they do the lives and traditions of this previously hidden world. The box features 25 original sheet drawings by Danzig Baldaev and 25 photographs by Sergei Vasiliev. Each has a detailed description of the meaning of each tattoo on the reverse. Also included is a postcard of each of the three book covers. The drawings printed on the postcards are facsimiles of Baldaev's original sheets, reproduced directly from the Russian Criminal Tattoo Archive. Previously unpublished in this form.

    Like celebrities of today, she toured the world, endorsed beauty products and department stores, appeared in fashion magazines, and even made a Hollywood movie. But her passion was always ballet, which she sought to bring to as wide an audience as possible. Many of the works she brought with her from Russia are regarded as the foundation of today’s classic ballet repertoire. Created to celebrate the centenary of the founding of Pavlova’s English dance company, this book offers an intimate look at the legendary ballerina whose name still resonates 80 years after her death. This richly illustrated book has now been revised to include an entirely new chapter on Pavlova's tours to North and South America, as well as new images of Pavlova with Charlie Chaplin. Anna Pavlova: Twentieth-Century Ballerina takes a fascinating look at the iconic star whose career spanned Russia and the West in the first half of the century, showing how she became the most influential dancer of the time.

    Isaac Levitan book includes 404 high quality reproductions of his greatest masterpieces with title and date.

    Fangs of the Lone Wolf: Chechen Tactics in the Russian-Chechen Wars 1994-2009 is an exception. These are the stories of low-level guerrilla combat as told by the survivors. They cover fighting from the cities of Grozny and Argun to the villages of Bamut and Serzhen-yurt, and finally the hills, river valleys and mountains that make up so much of Chechnya. The author embedded with Chechen guerrilla forces and knows the conflict, country and culture. Yet, as a Western outsider, he is able to maintain perspective and objectivity. He traveled extensively to interview Chechen former combatants now displaced, some now in hiding or on the run from Russian retribution and justice. The military professional will appreciate the book's crisp narration, organization by type of combat, accurate color maps and insightful analysis and commentary. The civilian reader will discover the complexity of "simple guerrilla tactics" and the demands on individual perseverance and endurance that guerrilla warfare exacts.The book is organized into vignettes that provide insight on the nature of both Chechen and Russian tactics utilized during the two wars. They show the chronic problem of guerrilla logistics, the necessity of digging in fighting positions, the value of the correct use of terrain and the price paid in individual discipline and unit cohesion when guerrillas are not bound by a military code and law. Guerrilla warfare is probably as old as man, but has been overshadowed by maneuver war by modern armies and recent developments in the technology of war. As Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines and Chechnya demonstrate, guerrilla war is not only still viable, but is increasingly common. Fangs of the Lone Wolf provides a unique insight into what is becoming modern and future war.

    Tracing the lives and friendship of these two dancers from years just before the 1917 Russian Revolution to Balanchine's escape from Russia in 1924, Elizabeth Kendall's Balanchine & the Lost Muse sheds new light on a crucial flash point in the history of ballet. Drawing upon extensive archival research, Kendall weaves a fascinating tale about this decisive period in the life of the man who would become the most influential choreographer in modern ballet. Abandoned by his mother at the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet Academy in 1913 at the age of nine, Balanchine spent his formative years studying dance in Russia's tumultuous capital city. It was there, as he struggled to support himself while studying and performing, that Balanchine met Ivanova. A talented and bold dancer who grew close to the Bolshevik elite in her adolescent years, Ivanova was a source of great inspiration to Balanchine--both during their youth together, and later in his life, after her mysterious death just days before they had planned to leave Russia together in 1924. Kendall shows that although Balanchine would have a great number of muses, many of them lovers, the dark beauty of his dear friend Lidochka would inspire much of his work for years to come. Part biography and part cultural history, Balanchine & the Lost Muse presents a sweeping account of the heyday of modern ballet and the culture behind the unmoored ideals, futuristic visions, and human decadence that characterized the Russian Revolution.

    It reflects the unique perspective of an insider who is also recognized as a leading expert on this troubled relationship. American presidents have repeatedly attempted to forge a strong and productive partnership only to be held hostage to the deep mistrust born of the Cold War. For the United States, Russia remains a priority because of its nuclear weapons arsenal, its strategic location bordering Europe and Asia, and its ability to support--or thwart--American interests. Why has it been so difficult to move the relationship forward? What are the prospects for doing so in the future? Is the effort doomed to fail again and again?Angela Stent served as an adviser on Russia under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and maintains close ties with key policymakers in both countries. Here, she argues that the same contentious issues--terrorism, missile defense, Iran, nuclear proliferation, Afghanistan, the former Soviet space, the greater Middle East--have been in every president's inbox, Democrat and Republican alike, since the collapse of the USSR. Stent vividly describes how Clinton and Bush sought inroads with Russia and staked much on their personal ties to Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin--only to leave office with relations at a low point--and how Barack Obama managed to restore ties only to see them undermined by a Putin regime resentful of American dominance and determined to restore Russia's great power status."The Limits of Partnership" calls for a fundamental reassessment of the principles and practices that drive U.S.-Russian relations, and offers a path forward to meet the urgent challenges facing both countries.

    The few surviving members of the Sturmpionierbataillon deployed in North Africa are have now assigned to the eastern front. Throughout the crucial fight for Stalingrad, a battle which claimed two million victims, human tolerance is tested beyond all limits. There is trench warfare, hand-to-hand combat for every single building, hunger and cold. Madness becomes the last place of refuge before death… Under these conditions, young lieutenant von Wetzland is forced to accept that he cannot possibly keep up even the most basic of moral standards. And that applies to himself, as well as to his men.

    People in every corner of the Soviet Union lived in daily terror of imprisonment and execution. In researching the surviving threads of memoirs and oral reminiscences of five women victimized by the Gulag, author Paul R. Gregory has stitched together a collection of stories from the female perspective, a view in short supply. Capturing the fear, paranoia, and unbearable hardship that were hallmarks of Stalin’s Great Terror, Gregory relates the stories of five women from different social strata and regions in vivid prose, from their pre-Gulag lives, through their struggles to survive in the repressive atmosphere of the late 1930s and early 1940s, to the difficulties facing the four who survived as they adjusted to life after the Gulag. These firsthand accounts illustrate how even the wrong word could become a crime against the state. The book begins with a synopsis of Stalin’s rise to power, the roots of the Gulag, and the scheming and plotting that led to and persisted in one of the bloodiest, most egregious dictatorships of the 20th century.

    Anya von Bremzen has vobla-rock-hard, salt-cured dried Caspian roach fish. Lovers of vobla risk breaking a tooth or puncturing a gum on the once-popular snack, but for Anya it's transporting. Like kotleti (Soviet burgers) or the festive Salat Olivier, it summons up the complex, bittersweet flavors of life in that vanished Atlantis called the USSR. There, born in 1963 in a Kafkaesque communal apartment where eighteen families shared one kitchen, Anya grew up singing odes to Lenin, black-marketeering Juicy Fruit gum at her school, and, like most Soviet citizens, longing for a taste of the mythical West. It was a life by turns absurd, drab, naively joyous, melancholy-and, finally, intolerable to her anti-Soviet mother. When she was ten, the two of them fled the political repression of Brezhnev-era Russia, arriving in Philadelphia with no winter coats and no right of return.These days Anya lives in two parallel food universes: one in which she writes about four-star restaurants, the other in which a simple banana-a once a year treat back in the USSR-still holds an almost talismanic sway over her psyche. To make sense of that past, she and her mother decided to eat and cook their way through seven decades of the Soviet experience. Through the meals she and her mother re-create, Anya tells the story of three generations-her grandparents', her mother's, and her own. Her family's stories are embedded in a larger historical epic: of Lenin's bloody grain requisitioning, World War II hunger and survival, Stalin's table manners, Khrushchev's kitchen debates, Gorbachev's anti-alcohol policies, and the ultimate collapse of the USSR. And all of it is bound together by Anya's sardonic wit, passionate nostalgia, and piercing observations.This is that rare book that stirs our souls and our senses.

    These include films: The Irony of Fate, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, White Sun of the Desert, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson; a novel: The Twelve Chairs; animated cartoons: Hedgehog in the Mist and The Prostokvashino Three; the writer Mikhail Bulgakov; the singer-songwriter Vladimir Vysotsky; stand-up comedians Mikhail Zhvanestky and Mikhail Zadornov; and a character from a fairy tale, Yemelya the Simpleton. The subjects of the chapters were selected for their influence on Russian language and thinking, and also because they reflect Russian attitudes and perceptions. The author brings them to life through her own experiences of, and responses to, these modern icons. This book, though invaluable for students of Russian, is for everyone interested in Russian language and culture, and explains why certain references and attitudes continue to permeate everyday life. Olga Fedina grew up in Moscow in the turbulent late-Soviet and immediately post-Soviet years, graduating from the Department of Journalism of Moscow State University. She subsequently lived for a decade in London and is currently based in Valencia, Spain. She sometimes misses her homeland, and this book expresses some of the unique aspects of Russia and the Russians that she always carries with her.

    Bored with life in the Prussian provinces, Princess Johanna is delighted when she is invited to bring her fourteen-year old daughter to the Russian court to be betrothed to the future Emperor. But there are powerful court factions determined to prevent a Prussian princess from taking the Russian throne. The Russian court is not for the faint-hearted but Sophie survives two decades of dangerous court intrigue, not only to to take the throne of one of the greatest empires of the eighteenth century but to become Catherine the Great, one of its greatest rulers.

    Concentrating on Vladimir Putin's system of governance - referred to as sistema - she identifies four key types of networks: his inner circle, useful friends, core contacts and more diffuse ties and connections. These networks serve sistema but also serve themselves. Reliance on networks enables leaders to mobilise and to control, yet they also lock politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen into informal deals, mediated interests and personalised loyalty. This is the 'modernisation trap of informality': one cannot use the potential of informal networks without triggering their negative long-term consequences for institutional development. Ledeneva's perspective on informal power is based on in-depth interviews with sistema insiders and enhanced by evidence of its workings brought to light in court cases, enabling her to draw broad conclusions about the prospects for Russia's political institutions.

    •Inner click-able Tables of Contents for all individual books with multiple chapters.•Nicely organized chapters and text.Author’s works include:•TARAS BULBA•DEAD SOULS•THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL A COMEDY IN FIVE ACTS•ST. JOHN’S EVE•A MAY NIGHT•THE VIY•HOW THE TWO IVANS QUARRELLED•MEMOIRS OF A MADMAN•THE NOSE•THE CALASH•THE CLOAK•THE MYSTERIOUS PORTRAIT

    Van Herpen compares in detail the many and often surprising parallels that exist between Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia and that of Weimar Germany and Mussolini's Italy indicating the presence of strong Fascist elements in the contemporary Russian Political system. However, this is tempered with elements of Bonapartism from Napoleon III's France and the populism of Italian politics under Berlusconi creating a hybrid system which has been termed 'Fascism-Lite' with a softer face than Mussolinian Fascism but still containing a hard core of ultra-nationalism, militarism and neo-imperialism. The author not only looks at Putin's regime in retrospect but also offers an insight into the future of the Russian political system as Russia's strong man begins his third term in office.

    Petersburg, Helsinki, and Tallinn.In this compact guide, Rick Steves covers the essential spots of each city, including the Hermitage, the Church of the Spilled Blood, Linnanmäki (a classic amusement park), and Toompea Castle. Take a day trip to the Peterhof, stroll through Kaivopuisto Park, or visit the Kumu Art Museum. You’ll get Rick’s firsthand advice on the best sights, eating, sleeping, and nightlife, and the maps and self-guided tours will ensure you make the most of your experience. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves Snapshot guide is a tour guide in your pocket.Rick Steves’ Snapshot guides consist of excerpted chapters from Rick Steves’ European country guidebooks. Snapshot guides are a great choice for travelers visiting a specific city or region, rather than multiple European destinations. These slim guides offer all of Rick’s up-to-date advice on what sights are worth your time and money. They include good-value hotel and restaurant recommendations, with no introductory information (such as overall trip planning, when to go, and travel practicalities).

    While European courts targeted and executed overwhelmingly female suspects, often on charges of compacting with the devil, the tsars' courts vigorously pursued men and some women accused of practicing more down-to-earth magic, using poetic spells and home-grown potions. Instead of Satanism or heresy, the primary concern in witchcraft testimony in Russia involved efforts to use magic to subvert, mitigate, or avenge the harsh conditions of patriarchy, serfdom, and social hierarchy.Broadly comparative and richly illustrated with color plates, Desperate Magic places the trials of witches in the context of early modern Russian law, religion, and society. Piecing together evidence from trial records to illuminate some of the central puzzles of Muscovite history, Kivelson explores the interplay among the testimony of accusers, the leading questions of the interrogators, and the confessions of the accused. Assembled, they create a picture of a shared moral vision of the world that crossed social divides. Because of the routine use of torture in extracting and shaping confessions, Kivelson addresses methodological and ideological questions about the Muscovite courts equation of pain and truth, questions with continuing resonance in the world today. Within a moral economy that paired unquestioned hierarchical inequities with expectations of reciprocity, magic and suspicions of magic emerged where those expectations were most egregiously violated.Witchcraft in Russia surfaces as one of the ways that oppression was contested by ordinary people scrambling to survive in a fiercely inequitable world. Masters and slaves, husbands and wives, and officers and soldiers alike believed there should be limits to exploitation and saw magic deployed at the junctures where hierarchical order veered into violent excess.

    They are joining in to perform air guitar at festivals in Finland, and listening intently from within the audience at community film screenings in Rwanda. The challenge of today is not just "where do I fit in one small place," but identity and interaction throughout the world. The Places We've Been: Field Reports from Travelers Under 35 offers a peer-written collection of 48 vivid and transportive, personal and original nonfiction pieces that portray contemporary snapshots across the globe. Contributors include: Theopi Skarlatos, journalist with the BBC Daniel Ketchum, editor at Marvel Comics Derek Helwig, twelve-season producer with The Amazing Race Vanessa Mdee, VJ at MTV Base and HIV/AIDS activist Kaitlin Solimine, co-founder of HIPPO Reads Andrew Bisharat, editor-at-large for Rock and Ice magazine Lisa Dazols, co-filmmaker and blogger of Out & Around Yuki Aizawa, 2007-2008 facilitator at StoryCorps Justin "Nordic Thunder" Howard, 2012 Air Guitar World Champion and many more writers and adventurers, whose publication histories include: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Vogue India, San Francisco Chronicle, Conde Nast Traveler, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Lonely Planet, Velvet Park, Crab Orchard Review, Arts & Letters, Abu Dhabi Film Festival Magazine, and others. and whose backgrounds include awards from the: National Endowment for the Arts, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, U.S. Department of State Fulbright Creative Arts Fellows, Hedgebrook Writing Residency, Illinois Arts Council, and more. within the book's wide roster, you'll hear from such a range of storytellers, the likes of: a sailor and glaciologist from Scotland, Brooklyn musician, Tanzanian television host, Dubai-based journalist, and a Montreal aerospace medicine enthusiast, plus rural school teachers, a fearless rock climber, five-country midwife, and so many more. -- About the editor: Asha Veal Brisebois is the founder of The Places We've Been books. She was the editor for Apsaalooke: Art and Tradition, a catalogue and oral history project which resides in private and public collections including the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.

    Recasting our understanding of Soviet Jewish history, Becoming Soviet Jews demonstrates that the often violent social changes enforced by the communist project did not destroy continuities with prerevolutionary forms of Jewish life in Minsk. Using Minsk as a case study of the Sovietization of Jews in the former Pale of Settlement, Elissa Bemporad reveals the ways in which many Jews acculturated to Soviet society in the 1920s and 1930s while remaining committed to older patterns of Jewish identity, such as Yiddish culture and education, attachment to the traditions of the Jewish workers' Bund, circumcision, and kosher slaughter. This pioneering study also illuminates the reshaping of gender relations on the Jewish street and explores Jewish everyday life and identity during the years of the Great Terror.

    He is one of the most talented and prolific representatives of the Silver Age period in Russian history. Andreyev's style combines elements of realist, naturalist and symbolist schools in literature.In this ebook:Satan's DiaryThe Crushed Flower and Other StoriesThe Seven who were HangedHe Who Gets SlappedTranslated by Herman Bernstein, Gregory Zilboorg and Thomas Seltzer

    This wonderful collection of more than 25 recipes offers a taste of this culturally diverse cuisine with such dishes as the much-loved Borscht soup, Pelmeni (delicious little stuffed pastries), and Pirozhki (vegetable dumplings). There is Shashlyk, a kind of shish kebab, and imperial recipes such as Veal Orlofff, Beef Stroganoff, and Charlotte Russe. The introduction gives an insight into the background of Russian regional cooking, while stunning photographs of every finished dish are sure to inspire you to recreate the authentic taste of Russia in your own home. The author, Elena Makhonko, was born in St Petersburg and learnt to cook from her grandmother. She has written for various food magazines and also published several cookery books. The recipes in this book have been professionally written and have been properly tested in the author’s own kitchen. Ingredients are measured out in metric and imperial and US cup measures are also included.

    Soviet citizens took advantage of the new opportunities to meditate on the nation's turbulent history, from the Bolshevik Revolution, to the Terror, to World War II. Perhaps the most influential of these conversations took place in and around Novyi mir (New World), the most respected literary journal in the country. In The Readers of Novyi Mir, Denis Kozlov shows how the dialogue between literature and readers during the Thaw transformed the intellectual life and political landscape of the Soviet Union. Powerful texts by writers like Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak, and Ehrenburg led thousands of Novyi mir's readers to reassess their lives, entrenched beliefs, and dearly held values, and to confront the USSR's history of political violence and social upheaval. And the readers spoke back. Victims and perpetrators alike wrote letters to the journal, reexamining their own actions and bearing witness to the tragedies of the previous decades. Kozlov's insightful treatment of these confessions, found in Russian archives, and his careful reading of the major writings of the period force today's readers to rethink common assumptions about how the Soviet people interpreted their country's violent past. The letters reveal widespread awareness of the Terror and that literary discussion of its legacy was central to public life during the late Soviet decades. By tracing the intellectual journey of Novyi mir's readers, Kozlov illuminates how minds change, even in a closed society.

    Then the people decided that they had had enough of the Tsar and his family, and they devised a murderous plan to end his rule forever.Although the name “Anastasia” is recognized by almost everyone today, most people don't know the real story of Anastasia’s life: what it was like to be a royal Duchess in Russia; how it felt to be imprisoned in the palace and have everything taken away from her; and the terror of being escorted under guard to a small town in Siberia, the family’s final destination. This is a classic fairy tale story without a happy ending, of a princess who had everything in the world until her father's rule was overthrown and the family were incarcerated and ultimately assassinated. This diary, although a fictionalized version of what fifteen-year-old Anastasia would have written about if her diaries had not been destroyed, was carefully researched and includes true dates and experiences that Anastasia had.

    The book is, after all, a memoir or travelogue of sorts. These types of narratives either work or don’t work based on the strength of the narration, and I was pleased to find that Cormican’s storytelling is both engaging and laugh out loud funny. I found the story itself to be engrossing and hard to put down. The idea of cycling for forty days across Europe grabbed my attention, but I think it was Cormican’s attention to detail, not just details related to scenery, but the details related to his own feelings and emotions throughout the ride that kept me hooked. As a backpacker I identified most with his attention to the simple pleasures, sweetened by the mental and physical strain that goes into long distance cycling/exercise.""A charming travelogue and enterprising endeavour""Physically and emotionally it was a joy to join in on the adventure. I especially liked that Mel downplayed how hard this trip was. "Description"To St Petersburg With Love" is a quirky travelogue that proves that life is often stranger - and more fun - than fiction. This is the tale of what happened when the author attempted to cycle around most of Northern Europe in 40 days.With his friend Craig, an impossibly tight schedule, visa and ship deadlines, bear fears, mishaps and good fortunes, he set off on a life changing adventure to see most of Northern Europe. This is the story of triumphs and tribulations, challenges and compromises, of battling against all the odds and learning to let go of the rules to live the dream.For the Paperback edition, please search under amazon.es

    It describes his search for 'a practical religion not promising future bliss but giving bliss on earth'. Although the Confession led to his excommunication, it also resulted in a large following of Tolstoyan Christians springing up throughout Russia and Europe. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

    Nikolay Karamzin's most well-known work of fiction, "Poor Liza" is notable for its psychological analysis of its titular character—the first time a Russian writer had attempted to portray the thoughts and feelings of a young girl in love. It is fair to say that “Poor Liza” was the most significant Russian prose in terms of popularity and influence before the emergence of Alexander Pushkin onto the Russian literary scene in the 1820s. The story was so well received that in 1803 it was translated into English, a very rare occurrence for Russian literature of the time. More sentimentalist short stories by Karamzin appeared in English in 1804, such as “Natalia” and “Julia,” both of which are included in this collection.

    The early Soviet state feared that its Romani population suffered from an extraordinary and potentially insurmountable cultural "backwardness," and sought to sovietize Roma through a range of nation-building projects. Yet as Brigid O'Keeffe shows in this book, Roma actively engaged with Bolshevik nationality policies, thereby assimilating Soviet culture, social customs, and economic relations. Roma proved the primary agents in the refashioning of so-called "backwards Gypsies" into conscious Soviet citizens.New Soviet Gypsies provides a unique history of Roma, an overwhelmingly understudied and misunderstood diasporic people, by focusing on their social and political lives in the early Soviet Union. O'Keeffe illustrates how Roma mobilized and performed "Gypsiness" as a means of advancing themselves socially, culturally, and economically as Soviet citizens. Exploring the intersection between nationality, performance, and self-fashioning, O'Keeffe shows that Roma not only defy easy typecasting, but also deserve study as agents of history.

    An astounding compilation of primary source documents dealing with all aspects of Jewish daily life in the Russian empire

    Painted in the Suprematist and Constructivist style of early twentieth-century Russian avant-garde masters, the 181 canvases had been acquired by amateur collectors Ron and Roger Pollard from a mysterious seller in Germany they met on eBay who claimed the paintings were found in an abandoned shipping container held in German customs since the 1980s. In From Russia with Doubt, Lerner skillfully weaves together the tale—from the initial eBay find to his controversial decision to exhibit the collection—guiding readers through the looking glass into the Byzantine corridors of the art world and beyond, describing the owners' quest to authenticate and appraise the would-be masterpieces. What he finds raises powerful questions about our own relationship to art.

    Except in Putin’s Russia. A supermodel covergirl-turned-ninja-bodyguard-to-the-billionaires killed on the mean streets of Moscow, in a high-speed mortal struggle with professional mobsters carjacking her $150,000 Porsche Cayenne. Or at least that's how the media reported the death of Anna Loginova. In fact, the truth behind the model's death and the child she left behind is darker and more tragic than any headline could describe.

    His theological vision--the neopatristic synthesis--became the main paradigm of Orthodox theology and the golden standard of Eastern Orthodox identity in the West. Focusing onFlorovsky's European period (1920-1948), this study analyzes how Florovsky's evolving interpretation of Russian religious thought, particularly Vladimir Solovyov and Sergius Bulgakov, informed his approach to patristic sources. Paul Gavrilyuk offers a new reading of Florovsky's neopatristictheology, by closely considering its ontological, epistemological, and ecclesiological foundations.It is common to contrast Florovsky's neopatristic theology with the modernist religious philosophies of Pavel Florensky, Sergius Bulgakov, and other representatives of the Russian Religious Renaissance. Gavrilyuk argues that the standard narrative of twentieth-century Orthodox theology, based onthis polarization, must be reconsidered. The author demonstrates Florovsky's critical appropriation of the main themes of the Russian Religious Renaissance, including theological antinomies, the meaning of history, and the nature of personhood. The distinctive features of Florovsky's neopatristictheology--Christological focus, ecclesial experience, personalism, and Christian Hellenism--are best understood against the background of the main problematic of the Renaissance. Specifically, it is shown that Bulgakov's sophiology provided a polemical subtext for Florovsky's theology ofcreation. It is argued that the use of the patristic norm in application to modern Russian theology represents Florovsky's theological signature.Drawing on unpublished archival material and correspondence, this study sheds new light on such aspects of Florovsky's career as his family background, his participation in the Eurasian movement, his dissertation on Alexander Herzen, his lectures on Vladimir Solovyov, and his involvement inBulgakov's Brotherhood of St Sophia.

    These novels are: A Nest of Gentlefolk, On The Eve, First Love. These novels are in Russian Language.

    Moscow and the West reached much more agreement over the Gulf War (1990) and intervention in Afghanistan (2001), but these cases are exceptional. This interdisciplinary study explores the persistent differences between Russian and Western leaders about most Western-led military campaigns and about Russia's own use of force in the CIS region. What does this tell us about emerging norms on the use of force in humanitarian crises? How and why has there been such controversy over the legal justifications for these military operations? Has greater consensus been possible over force in global counterterrorism? What do all these controversies tell us about international rule-making? More specifically, how can we understand Russian political and diplomatic responses during international crises around major interventions? This book argues that Russia has been influential in these debates on norms and law as a permanent United Nations Security Council member and as a major military power. Moscow's approach to these questions has reflected distinctive and quite entrenched attitudes to international order and sovereignty, as well as a preoccupation with its own status. The book draws deeply on Russian sources to show how these attitudes are expressed among the Russian leadership and the political elite. This raises challenging questions about the ability of Russia and Western states to cooperate in emerging crises, in Syria, Iran, or elsewhere and about Russia's role in international society.

    The menus themselves would be useful enough for what they reveal about culinary culture in Russia, but Yuri Lotman's commentary is invaluable, dissecting the dining rituals and the social circles of the participants. Durnovo's menus and guest lists, interspersed with extracts from family letters and the leading newspapers and journals of the day, set in context the domestic and gastronomic underpinnings of life in this group at the heart of the Russian empire. Translated by Marian Schwartz (who has worked with M. Gorbachev and translated works by Tolstoy, Bulgakov and Lermontov), the book as a whole is annotated and introduced by Darra Goldstein, Founding Editor of Gastronomica and Willcox B. and Harriet M. Adsit Professor of Russian at Williams College. The book is illustrated with paintings and photographs that give a sense of the high society milieu in mid-nineteenth-century Russia.

    Times have changed, but the personality and beliefs of Vladimir Putin, the current Russian president, still matter just as much as those of his predecessors - if not more. In a state where authority is still vested in personalities, not in institutions, the Russian president’s vision of his country, his understanding of its history, his training as a KGB officer and his personal experience of life in the Soviet Union now have an incalculable impact on Russian political life.

    We wanted to write something that would help people fall in love with Russia, as much as we have, by sharing our experiences and funny stories about our life as an expat in St. Petersburg (Maya Krivchenia) and travel professional organizer (Alexander Rodionov).Russia is an exciting, interesting, and dynamic country, but sometimes the differences that people come across are extremely frustrating and confusing. Our goal is to explain some of Russia’s unique qualities so that our friends, clients, tourist, and all others can appreciate this amazing country. Hopefully this will help answer some of the many questions you already have about Russia while planning your trip. By traveling to Russia you will certainly have a unique experience and hopefully by reading this you will get to experience Russia to the fullest!

    As the receding polar ice increases the accessibility of the Arctic region, rival powers have been manoeuvering for geopolitical and resource security. Geographically, Russia controls half of the Arctic coastline, 40 percent of the land area beyond the Circumpolar North, and three quarters of the Arctic population. In total, the sea and land surface area of the Russian Arctic is about 6 million square kilometres.Economically, as much as 20 percent of Russia's GDP and its total exports is generated north of the Arctic Circle. In terms of resources, about 95 percent of its gas, 75 percent of its oil, 96 percent of its platinum, 90 percent of its nickel and cobalt, and 60 percent of its copper reserves are found in Arctic and Sub-Arctic regions. Add to this the riches of the continental shelf, seabed, and waters, ranging from rare earth minerals to fish stocks. After a spike of aggressive rhetoric when Russia planted its flag in the Arctic seabed in 2007, Moscow has attempted to strengthen its position as a key factor in developing an international consensus concerning a region where its relative advantages are manifest, despite its diminishing military, technological, and human capacities.

    Still, thousands of Jews in these small towns survived the war and returned afterward to rebuild their communities. The recollections of some 400 returnees in Ukraine provide the basis for Jeffrey Veidlinger’s reappraisal of the traditional narrative of 20th-century Jewish history. These elderly Yiddish speakers relate their memories of Jewish life in the prewar shtetl, their stories of survival during the Holocaust, and their experiences living as Jews under Communism. Despite Stalinist repressions, the Holocaust, and official antisemitism, their individual remembrances of family life, religious observance, education, and work testify to the survival of Jewish life in the shadow of the shtetl to this day.

    But certain misunderstandings oblige him to flee from Ukraine. For some reason, everything in his life builds up to a certain Russian scenario. So to what extent should one burden Ukrainians with the outcome of this Russian Story? Finding himself involuntarily identified with Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, the hero of the novel, Eugene Samarsky, becomes a 'superfluous man' in Ukraine. The novel by Eugenia Kononenko deals with love and the quest for one’s own identity, with the vaguely remembered circumstances rendering life nonsensical in Ukraine during the last years of the empire and the early years of independence. It considers the possibility of a mid-Atlantic meeting in today's globalised world.

    Looking at religious transformation among Buryats across changing political economies, Anya Bernstein argues that under conditions of rapid social change--such as those that accompanied the Russian Revolution, the Cold War, and the fall of the Soviet Union--Buryats have used Buddhist "body politics" to articulate their relationship not only with the Russian state, but also with the larger Buddhist world. During these periods, Bernstein shows, certain people and their bodies became key sites through which Buryats conformed to and challenged Russian political rule. She presents particular cases of these emblematic bodies--dead bodies of famous monks, temporary bodies of reincarnated lamas, ascetic and celibate bodies of Buddhist monastics, and dismembered bodies of lay disciples given as imaginary gifts to spirits--to investigate the specific ways in which religion and politics have intersected. Contributing to the growing literature on postsocialism and studies of sovereignty that focus on the body, "Religious Bodies Politic" is a fascinating illustration of how this community employed Buddhism to adapt to key moments of political change.

    This book offers a fascinating range of jewels and objects d'art crafted in St Petersburg during the golden age of ornamental design. Starting with the reign of Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, through that of Catherine the Great and ending in 1917 with the passing of Nicholas the 2nd, the book is intertwined with captivating personal and imperial history. It describes the development of style and design within the art of the St Petersburg goldsmith, while putting it into historical context. Many of the pieces portrayed come from private collections in Finland and Sweden, each with a unique prominence happily preserved in anecdotes, letters, diaries, historical documents, and photographs. Magnificent portraits from Russia's most prestigious museums can likewise be found throughout the book's 300 deeply illustrated pages."

    The finest gowns, jewels, snuff boxes, and banqueting tableware of the Tsarist era were sumptuously displayed then for the last time. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 brought such opulence to an end. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians have been eager to repatriate their lost heritage. Works by jewelers and silversmiths to the Tsars are particularly sought after today as status symbols, with the market for pre-Revolutionary decorative arts touching a wide audience - from the curators at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, to the predawn bargain hunters at the Paris flea markets. Russian Decorative Arts offers an introductory guide to porcelain, glass, silver, Tula work and other base metals, orders and decorations, jewelry, objects of virtue, Faberge, lapidary, woodwork and walrus ivory. Each topic is detailed in an illustrated chapter introducing the techniques, its specific Russian characteristics and an overview of the principle makers."

    All are dependent on Russia for energy yet, as this fascinating study reveals, they have pursued very different foreign policies towards their powerful neighbour.

    Focusing on the relationship between power brokers and cultural institutions under conditions of state patronage, Pamela Kachurin lays to rest the myth of the imposition of control from above upon a victimized artistic community. Drawing on extensive archival research, she shows that Russian modernists used their positions within the expanding Soviet arts bureaucracy to build up networks of like-minded colleagues. Their commitment to one another and to the task of creating a socially transformative visual language for the new Soviet context allowed them to produce some of their most famous works of art. But it also contributed to the "Sovietization" of the art world that eventually sealed their fate.

    Donald Rayfield's biography of Przhevalsky - first published in 1976 and drawing on the exporer's diaries, letters, and published works - tells the thrilling story of the explorer's groundbreaking journeys, undertaken in an age of extreme political sensitivity between Russia, China and Britain. A rich portrait emerges of an extraordinary Byronic character who was ill-suited to civilisation but much at home with the loneliness and hardship of the nomadic life. A rigorous army officer and a phenomenal shot, gifted also with a photographic memory, Przhevalsky became one of the most widely-admired men in Russia, and Rayfield adroitly explores the grounds of his reputation.

    Nearly three and a half million Jews lived in Poland alone, with nearly three million more in the Soviet Union. Yet although the majority of the Jews of Europe and the United States, and a large proportion of the Jews of Israel, originate from these lands, and many of the major movements that have characterized the Jewish world in recent times have their origins there, the history of their Jewish communities is not well known. Rather, it is the subject of mythologizing that fails both to bring out the specific features of the Jewish civilization that emerged there and to illustrate what was lost in its destruction: Jewish life in these parts, though often poor materially, was marked by a high degree of spiritual and ideological intensity and creativity. Antony Polonsky re-creates this lost world - brutally cut down by the Holocaust and seriously damaged by the Soviet attempt to destroy Jewish culture - in a study that avoids both sentimentalism and the simplification of the east European Jewish experience into a story of persecution and martyrdom. It is an important story whose relevance reaches far beyond the Jewish world or the bounds of east-central Europe, and Professor Polonsky succeeds in providing a comprehensive overview that highlights the realities of Jewish life while also setting them in the context of the political, economic, and social realities of the time. He describes not only the towns and shtetls where the Jews lived, the institutions they developed, and their participation in the economy, but also their vibrant religious and intellectual life, including the emergence of hasidism and the growth of opposition to it from within the Jewish world. By the late eighteenth century other factors had come into play: with the onset of modernization there were government attempts to integrate and transform the Jews, and the stirrings of Enlightenment led to the growth of the Haskalah movement that was to revolutionize the Jewish world. Polonsky looks at developments in each area in turn: the problems of emancipation, acculturation, and assimilation in Prussian and Austrian Poland; the politics of integration in the Kingdom of Poland; and the failure of forced integration in the tsarist empire. He then shows how the deterioration in the position of the Jews between 1881 and 1914 encouraged a range of new movements - Zionism, socialism, and autonomism - as well as the emergence of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature. He also examines Jewish urbanization and the rise of Jewish mass culture. The final part of the volume deals with the twentieth century. Starting from the First World War and the establishment of the Soviet Union, it looks in turn at Poland, Lithuania, and the Soviet Union up to the Second World War. It then reviews Polish - Jewish relations during the war and examines the Soviet record in relation to the Holocaust. The final chapters deal with the Jews in the Soviet Union and in Poland since 1945, concluding with an epilogue on the Jews in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia since the collapse of communism.This is an abridged version of a three-volume hardback edition which won the 2011 Kulczycki Book Prize for Polish Studies (awarded by the American Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies) and also the Pro Historia Polonorum Prize for the best book on the history of Poland published in a foreign language between 2007 and 2011 (a prize established by the Polish Senate and awarded by the Polish Historical Association).

    Revolution, civil war, invasion, anarchy and casual indifference have conspired against many of the grand buildings of Russia’s rich and complex past. The architectural riches of Moscow and St Petersburg still exist for everyone to see, but when the photographer Simon Marsden and author Duncan McLaren entered the Russian countryside, away from the obvious tourist trails, they encountered a very different world. McLaren relates how “The further from Moscow and St Petersburg, the more desolate and derelict the landscape became. Endless pot-holed roads pass through one dead or dying village after another whose vandalized churches are now the refuge of owls and pigeons. This is the plight of modern-day Russia where the countryside is dying and its population declining while the big cities are thriving. Hidden away within all this desolation and chaos, many devastated country estates can be found. The statuary and formal gardens gone forever, replaced by an overgrown wilderness where stray dogs forage amongst the crumbling outhouses, garbage and rotting tyres.” This book, the result of four trips undertaken by Marsden and McLaren, illustrates a diverse mix of pre-revolutionary buildings and memorials, manor houses, palaces, churches, statuary and tombs, interspersed with more recent monuments from Soviet times. Each picture tells its own tale. In the newly found freedom and optimism of the post-communist era, some of these estates are being restored by individuals and organizations whose immense dedication to rescuing their past is nothing short of inspiring. Others will simply crumble to dust in the face of indifference from the majority of the population making Russia: A World Apart a beautiful and melancholy testament to the glories and grandeur of the past few centuries.

    His reputation is that of a Russian patriot and an independent-minded general who remained a key figure in Stalin's high command throughout the Great Patriotic War. Zhukov played a significant role in virtually all the principal battles on the Eastern Front during the Second World War - including Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin. It was Zhukov who formally accepted Germany's unconditional surrender on 9 May 1945.In his post-war autobiography Zhukov chronicled his brilliant career as he saw it - and wanted it to be seen. His memoirs reveal the why and how of decision-making at the highest level of the Soviet command throughout the war, and his continued loyalty to the Soviet dictator despite being demoted after the war. Zhukov's writing is a fascinating and invaluable source for anyone interested in the war on the Eastern Front and presents intriguing insights into Zhukov the man as well as Zhukov the military commander.

    During the Great War, all the belligerent nations produced an extraordinary variety of them - and they did so on a massive scale. As the 200 wartime and immediate post-war posters selected for this book reveal, they were one of the most potent, and memorable, ways of conveying news, information and propaganda.In the most graphic and colorful fashion they promoted values such as patriotism and sacrifice. By using rallying symbols such as flags as well as historical and mythical models, they sought to maintain morale and draw people together by stirring up anger against the enemy. Today their remarkable variety of styles gives us an instant insight into the themes and messages the military and civilian authorities wished to publicize.The sheer inventiveness of the poster artists is demonstrated as they focused on key aspects of the propaganda campaign in Britain, France, Germany, America and Russia. The diversity of their work is displayed here in chapters that cover recruitment, money raising, the soldier, the enemy, the family and the home front, films and the post-war world.A century ago, when these images were first viewed, they must have been even more striking in contrast to the poor-quality newspaper photographs and postcards that were available at the time. The Great War was to change that forever. It introduced a means of propaganda that was novel, persuasive and above all, powerful. It was the first media war, and the poster played a key role in it.

    In recent years, a lively body of work has developed around historical cinema, much of it proposing valuable new ways to consider the relationship between cinematic and historical representation. However, only a small proportion of this writing has paid attention to the issue of genre. In order to counter this omission, this book combines a critical analysis of the Hollywood historical film with an examination of its generic dimensions and a history of its development since the silent period. Historical Film: A Critical Introduction is concerned not simply with the formal properties of the films at hand, but also the ways in which they have been promoted, interpreted and discussed in relation to their engagement with the past.

    When have you gone into an electronics store, picked up a desirable gadget, and found that it was labeled "Made in Russia"? Probably never. Russia, despite its epic intellectual achievements in music, literature, art, and pure science, is a negligible presence in world technology. Despite its current leaders' ambitions to create a knowledge economy, Russia is economically dependent on gas and oil. In Lonely Ideas, Loren Graham investigates Russia's long history of technological invention followed by failure to commercialize and implement.For three centuries, Graham shows, Russia has been adept at developing technical ideas but abysmal at benefiting from them. From the seventeenth-century arms industry through twentieth-century Nobel-awarded work in lasers, Russia has failed to sustain its technological inventiveness. Graham identifies a range of conditions that nurture technological innovation: a society that values inventiveness and practicality; an economic system that provides investment opportunities; a legal system that protects intellectual property; a political system that encourages innovation and success. Graham finds Russia lacking on all counts. He explains that Russia's failure to sustain technology, and its recurrent attempts to force modernization, reflect its political and social evolution and even its resistance to democratic principles.But Graham points to new connections between Western companies and Russian researchers, new research institutions, a national focus on nanotechnology, and the establishment of Skolkovo, "a new technology city." Today, he argues, Russia has the best chance in its history to break its pattern of technological failure.

    In the postwar period, universities emerged as training grounds for the military-industrial complex, showcases of Soviet cultural and economic accomplishments and valued tools in international cultural diplomacy. However, these fêted Soviet institutions also generated conflicts about the place of intellectuals and higher learning under socialism. Disruptive party initiatives in higher education - from the xenophobia and anti-Semitic campaigns of late Stalinism to the rewriting of history and the opening of the USSR to the outside world under Khrushchev - encouraged students and professors to interpret their commitments as intellectuals in the Soviet system in varied and sometimes contradictory ways. In the process, the social construct of intelligentsia took on divisive social, political and national meanings for educated society in the postwar Soviet state.

    Yuri Nosenko, a Russian army officer awaiting execution for a crime he didn’t commit, is released from an NKVD prison and sent to Berlin to find and kill the former head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Müller. Müller has top secret Soviet documents which prove that Joseph Stalin ordered the Katyn Forest Massacre of 15,000 Polish officers. He aims to give the documents to the Americans in return for immunity from indictment as a war criminal and sanctuary in the West. The information contained in the documents could shatter the flimsy postwar peace between the USA and the USSR. It could also affect the outcome of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials. Trapped between American and Russian occupiers, pawn of the NKVD, Nosenko stumbles through the ruins of Berlin searching for Müller. He’s haunted by the terrors of the Eastern Front and consumed by memories of his vanished wife and children whom he has vowed to find. The hunt for Müller snares Nosenko in the murders of a young German woman and a U.S. Army general. A war survivor turned prostitute sacrifices everything to help Nosenko escape the NKVD. A female Red Army officer risks her life to help Nosenko find his family. Dogged by Russian assassins Nosenko’s dual quest becomes a perilous and deadly trek across Europe that propels him to a final reckoning with the days of killing.

    They are joining in to perform air guitar at festivals in Finland, and listening intently from within the audience at community film screenings in Rwanda. The challenge of today is not just "where do I fit in one small place," but identity and interaction throughout the world. The Places We've Been: Field Reports from Travelers Under 35 offers a peer-written collection of 48 vivid and transportive, personal and original nonfiction pieces that portray contemporary snapshots across the globe. Contributors include: Theopi Skarlatos, journalist with the BBC Daniel Ketchum, editor at Marvel Comics Derek Helwig, twelve-season producer with The Amazing Race Vanessa Mdee, VJ at MTV Base and HIV/AIDS activist Kaitlin Solimine, co-founder of HIPPO Reads Andrew Bisharat, editor-at-large for Rock and Ice magazine Lisa Dazols, co-filmmaker and blogger of Out & Around Yuki Aizawa, 2007-2008 facilitator at StoryCorps Justin "Nordic Thunder" Howard, 2012 Air Guitar World Champion and many more writers and adventurers, whose publication histories include: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Vogue India, San Francisco Chronicle, Condé Nast Traveler, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Lonely Planet, Velvet Park, Crab Orchard Review, Arts & Letters, Abu Dhabi Film Festival Magazine, and others and whose backgrounds include awards from the: National Endowment for the Arts, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, U.S. Department of State Fulbright Creative Arts Fellows, Hedgebrook Writing Residency, Illinois Arts Council, and morewithin the book's wide roster, you'll hear from such a range of storytellers, the likes of: a sailor and glaciologist from Scotland, Brooklyn musician, Tanzanian television host, Dubai-based journalist, and a Montreal aerospace medicine enthusiast, plus rural school teachers, a fearless rock climber, five-country midwife, and so many more -- About the editor: Asha Veal Brisebois is the founder of The Places We've Been books. She was the editor for Apsaalooke: Art and Tradition, a catalogue and oral history project which resides in private and public collections including the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.

    In Open Letters, the most comprehensive study of Russian picture postcards to date, Alison Rowley uses this medium to explore a variety of aspects of Russian popular culture. The book is lavishly illustrated with more than 130 images, most of which have never been published before.Through her examinations of postcards, Rowley addresses a diverse range of topics: how landscape postcards conveyed notions of imperialism; the role of postcards in the rise of celebrity culture; depictions of the body on erotic and pornographic postcards; how postcards were employed to promote differing interpretations of the First World War; and the use of postcards by revolutionary groups seeking to overthrow the Tsarist government. Rowley determines the extent to which Russia was embedded in Europe-wide cultural trends by situating the Russian case within a larger European context.

    The rituals of Siberian shamans, the ancient funerary sculptures from the steppes seen as a crystallized presence of archaic and everlasting forms of worship, Chinese popular prints, Japanese engravings, Theosophic and Anthroposophic theories, and Indian philosophy are but some of the elements that inspired the aesthetic and theoretical pursuits of the new generation of Russian artists and writers just before the October 1917 Revolution. This book examines figures such as Léon Bakst, Alexandre Benois, Pavel Filonov, Natalia Goncharova, Wassily Kandinsky, Mikhail Larionov, and Kazimir Malevich, who were deeply aware of the significance of the East for their art, and contributed to launching a rich debate that left a deep and permanent mark on their artistic praxis.

    From her marriage with Lenin in 1898 to the couple's travels around Europe, from the arrangements of the October Revolution in 1917 to the organisation of the Soviet Government, Nadezhda Krupskaya recalls the time spent with her husband and the important roles she had among the Bolsheviks before and after the Revolution.