March 01, 2002 World Citizen Cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich (1927) turns 75 on March 27. Born in Baku (capital of Azerbaidzhan), Rostropovich took his first music lessons from his father—a teacher at the Baku Conservatory.
March 01, 2012 Alexander Herzen He was a poet, revolutionary, memoirist, publisher and emigre. He was a scion of the Bolsheviks, but he would have wanted nothing to do with them.
January 01, 2008 Rostropovich, Chechnya and Pushkin A review of recent books on Mstislav Rostropovich, Chechnya and the future of Russia, plus a new translation of Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter.
January 01, 2013 Galina Vishnevskaya A look back at the life and contribution of opera singer, actress and dissident Galina Vishnevskaya, who passed away in December.
Rediscovering Herzen The NY Times looks at Herzen and his connection to the Stoppard play that has been getting buzz in recent years.
February 29, 2012 Alexander Ivanovich Herzen The Russian writer Alexander Ivanovich Herzen was born in Moscow on March 25, 1812 (April 6, New Style). Thanks to a famous phrase from Lenin’s “In Memory of Herzen” – “The Decembrists awakened Herzen. Herzen began the task of revolutionary agitation.” – everyone who grew up in the Soviet Union knew Herzen’s name, whether or not they had ever read a line of his work.
September 01, 2010 301 Things Everyone Should Know About Russia How do you begin to get a handle on the world's largest country? This colorful, illustrated guide will get you started... Culture History Reference Nonfiction
July 15, 2022 Steppe This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian. Bilingual Books Fiction Language Learning
August 17, 2018 Resilience ~ The Russian Version (Переживем) Call it resilience, grit, or just perseverance – it takes a special sort of person to have survived the last 100 years of Russian and Soviet history. Nonfiction
June 01, 2016 Driving Down Russia's Spine The story of the epic Spine of Russia trip, intertwining fascinating subject profiles with digressions into historical and cultural themes relevant to understanding modern Russia. Nonfiction
December 01, 2014 East of the Sun: The Epic Conquest and Tragic History of Siberia The very word Siberia evokes a history and reputation as awesome as it is enthralling. In this acclaimed book on Russia’s conquest of its eastern realms, Benson Bobrick offers a story that is both rich and subtle, broad and deep. Nonfiction
July 01, 2015 The Latchkey Murders Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow... Literature Fiction
October 01, 2013 The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers. History Literature Fiction
November 01, 2010 Frogs Who Begged... This edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina. Culture Literature Bilingual Books Fiction
October 15, 2015 Red Star Tales: A Century of Russian and Soviet Science Fiction For over 100 years, most of the science fiction produced by the world’s largest country has been beyond the reach of Western readers. This new collection changes that, bringing a large body of influential works into the English orbit. Fiction
Chekhov Bilingual Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. Bilingual Books Fiction Language Learning
March 05, 2018 Resilience: Life Stories of Centenarians Born in the Year of Revolution Call it resilience, grit, or just perseverance – it takes a special sort of person to have survived the last 100 years of Russian and Soviet history. Nonfiction
December 24, 2022 A Taste of Chekhov This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life. Fiction