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READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

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Waterway of the Czars

Essential Reading

Item EXRUS153. Buy these 4 items as a set for $89 including shipping, 15% off the retail price.
With free shipping on anything else you order.

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Russia, A Concise History

Russia, A Concise History

by Ronald Hingley

  • HISTORY
  • 2003
  • PAPER
  • 224 PAGES

Well-known scholar Hingley sketches Russia's multiple transformations from her illiterate, pagan, Slavic roots to a multi-ethnic empire in this highly readable, well-illustrated brief history. (RUS04, $19.95)

Land of the Firebird, The Beauty of Old Russia

Land of the Firebird, The Beauty of Old Russia

by Suzanne Massie

  • HISTORY
  • 1995
  • PAPER
  • 496 PAGES
  • HARD TO FIND ELSEWHERE

Massie traces both minuscule details and larger movements in pre-revolutionary Russian art, literature and daily life in this affectionate overview of 19th-century palaces, courts and culture. (RUS21, $35.00)

Odyssey Guide Moscow, St. Petersburg & The Golden Ring

Odyssey Guide Moscow, St. Petersburg & The Golden Ring

by Masha Nordbye | Patricia Lanza

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2007
  • PAPER
  • 728 PAGES

A comprehensive guide to the art, culture and history of two great Russian cities, filled with maps and fine color photographs. (RUS78, $26.95)

Russia from St. Petersburg to Moscow Map

Russia from St. Petersburg to Moscow Map

by Falk Maps

  • 2009
  • MAP
  • CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE
    • >

A detailed map of northwest Russia at a scale of 1:750,000, well-suited for a river cruise between St. Petersburg and Moscow. It covers all but the northernmost extent of the route. (RUS06, $15.95)

 
Moscow Map

Moscow Map


by ITMB

  • MAP

A handy, folding map of Moscow. (RUS151, $8.95)

Russia's Heritage Cities

Russia's Heritage Cities


by International Travel Maps

  • 2002
  • MAP

A map of the Golden Ring cities surrounding Moscow, at a scale of 1:500,000. (RUS217, $8.95)

St. Petersburg Map

St. Petersburg Map


by Borch Maps

  • MAP

A detailed, laminated city plan of St. Petersburg, with street index inset. Place names are in transliterated English. (RUS89, $8.95)

Culture Smart! Russia

Culture Smart! Russia


by Anna King

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2007
  • PAPER
  • 168 PAGES

A concise, no-nonsense guide to local customs, etiquette and culture with a short overview of the land and people along with practical travel advice. (RUS361, $9.95)

Eyewitness Guide St. Petersburg

Eyewitness Guide St. Petersburg


by Eyewitness Guides

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2013
  • PAPER
  • 264 PAGES

With excellent local maps and site plans, this outstanding visual guide introduces the culture, history and attractions of St. Petersburg. (RUS87, $25.00)

Frommer's Moscow & St. Petersburg

Frommer's Moscow & St. Petersburg


by Frommer's

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2012
  • PAPER
  • 360 PAGES

A practical guide with recommendations for sightseeing, restaurants, shopping and excursions. Detailed maps throughout. (RUS421, $19.99)

Lonely Planet Russian Phrasebook

Lonely Planet Russian Phrasebook


by James Jenkin | Inna Zaitseva

  • LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS
  • 2009
  • PAPER
  • 256 PAGES

A handy shirtpocket phrasebook for Russian basics focusing on pronunciation, basic grammar and essential vocabulary for the traveler. (RUS111, $8.99)

A Traveller's History of Russia

A Traveller's History of Russia


by Peter Neville

  • HISTORY
  • 2011
  • PAPER
  • 336 PAGES

An impressively compact, lively survey of Russian history from the coming of the Slavs to the collapse of the Soviet Union. (RUS47, $14.95)

Lenin's Tomb

Lenin's Tomb


by David Remnick

  • HISTORY
  • 1994
  • PAPER
  • 588 PAGES

A gripping eyewitness tale of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Remnick, the Washington Post reporter on the scene, combines fine historical scholarship with great storytelling. (RUS07, $18.00)

Mr. Putin, Operative in the Kremlin


by Clifford Gaddy | Fiona Hill

  • HISTORY
  • 2012
  • PAPER
  • 390 PAGES

Drawing on a range of sources, including their own personal encounters, two fellows at the Brookings Institution describe six of Putin's most essential idetities: the Statist, the History Man, the Survivalist, the Outsider, the Free Marketeer, and the Case Officer. (RUS496, $29.95)

Russia of the Tsars

Russia of the Tsars


by Peter Waldron

  • HISTORY
  • 2011
  • PAPER
  • 144 PAGES

Waldron recounts the exploits of Peter the Great and the Tsars and the splendor of their capital city, St. Petersburg, in this lively, well illustrated and compact overview of the largest and most diverse empire of its day. (RUS462, $24.95)

Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia

Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia


by W. Bruce Lincoln

  • HISTORY
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 432 PAGES

A wonderfully written, informative portrait of St. Petersburg, focusing on the city's development in the 18th and 19th centuries as Russia's "window on the West." Highly recommended for travelers with an interest in the character and significance of the city and its monuments. (RUS128, $19.95)

The Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution


by Sheila Fitzpatrick

  • HISTORY
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 199 PAGES

A concise provocative summary of events in Russia between 1917 and 1939. Fitzpatrick makes an admirable effort to rescue from politics the greatest upheaval of modern times and reclaim it for history. (RUS39, $19.95)

Vodka, A Global History

Vodka, A Global History


by Patricia Herlihy

  • HISTORY
  • 2012
  • HARD COVER
  • 128 PAGES

A professor of history at Brown, Patricia Herlihy tracks our fascination with this most versatile of spirits from its mysterious 14th Century Slavic origins to today's global dominance in this throughoughly entertaining, erudite and illustrated short history. A volume in the lively Edible History Series. (RUS475, $17.00)

Romanov Riches, Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars


by Solomon Volkov

  • ART & ARCHITECTURE
  • 2011
  • HARD COVER
  • 274 PAGES

Volkov effortlessly unwinds the twisted relationship between art and the royal family from the rise of the Romanovs in 1613 to their downfall in 1917, including a chapter on Catherine the Great and her era. (RUS473, $30.00)

Catherine the Great

Catherine the Great


by Robert K. Massie

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 2012
  • PAPER
  • 625 PAGES

Eager readers of Massie's Nicholas and Alexandria or the Pulitzer Prize-wining Peter the Great will not be disappointed by this latest, an old-fashioned tale of politics, power and 18th-century Europe, drawing effectively from the ambitious Catherine's own memoirs. Winner of the first-ever Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. (RUS470, $20.00)

Peter the Great, His Life and World

Peter the Great, His Life and World


by Robert Massie

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 2011
  • PAPER
  • 914 PAGES

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Massie portrays the giant of history who transformed Russia from backwater tsardom into a major empire. (RUS48, $21.00)

Speak, Memory

Speak, Memory


by Vladimir Nabokov

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 1989
  • PAPER
  • 316 PAGES

Nabokov's richly imagined memoir wonderfully evokes cultural life among the well-to-do in in turn-of-the-century St. Peterburg. Today a museum, Nabokov called childhood home off St Isaac's Square "the only house in the world." (RUS28, $16.00)

The Man Without a Face, The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin

The Man Without a Face, The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin


by Masha Gessen

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 2013
  • PAPER
  • 313 PAGES

A Russian-American journalist living in Moscow, Masha Gessen demolishes the many myths and legends surrounding Vladimir Putin and his transformation from unexceptional KGB bureaucrat to the most powerful man in Russia. No fan of the man, who she calls a "hoodlum turned iron-handed ruler," Gessen is brave -- and optimistic that his time will soon come. (RUS485, $16.00)

Russian Short Stories

Russian Short Stories


by Robert Chandler

  • LITERATURE
  • 2006
  • PAPER
  • 396 PAGES

This fine collection of tales captures the sweep and soul of Russian literature, including works by Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Tolstoy along with lesser-known greats. (RUS288, $18.00)

The Captain's Daughter and Other Stories


by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

  • LITERATURE
  • 2012
  • PAPER
  • 292 PAGES

This collection of short stories from the Russian poet and master storyteller opens with his famous novella, The Captain's Daughter, set against the events of the Pugachov uprising during the reign of Catherine the Great, and contains eight further tales, all rendered in Pushkin's simple, elegant prose and beautifully evocative of the caprices of Tsarist Russia (RUS311, $12.95)

The Winter Queen

The Winter Queen


by Boris Akunin | Andrew Bromfield

  • LITERATURE
  • 2004
  • PAPER
  • 249 PAGES

Akunin sets a suspected murder among the glitterati of late 19th-century Moscow in this first book in the series of clever detective novels starring the rascal Erast Fandorin, wildly popular in Russia. (RUS210, $15.00)

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