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Books for

Enrich your travels with reading! Here's a hand-picked list prepared for your journey in conjunction with the book experts at Longitude.

Essential Reading

Item EXRUS100. Buy these 4 items as a set for $86 including shipping, 20% off the retail price.
With free shipping on anything else you order.

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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, 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 miniscule 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)

Russia from St. Petersburg to Moscow Map

Russia from St. Petersburg to Moscow Map

by Falk Maps

  • 2009
  • MAP

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, $17.95)

 
Helsinki Map

Helsinki Map


by Freytag & Berndt

  • MAP

A foldout map of Helsinki, with an index at the detailed scale of 1:15,000. (SCN36, $11.95)

Moscow Map

Moscow Map


by ITMB

  • MAP

A handy, folding map of Moscow. (RUS151, $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, $7.95)

Berlitz Russian Phrase Book & Dictionary

Berlitz Russian Phrase Book & Dictionary


by Berlitz Pocket Guides

  • LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS
  • 2008
  • PAPER
  • 224 PAGES

A short introduction to common Russian words and phrases, designed for the traveler. Contains more than 1,000 phrases and more than 2,000 words. (RUS107, $8.95)

Bradt City Guide Helsinki

Bradt City Guide Helsinki


by Nigel Wallis

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2007
  • PAPER
  • 300 PAGES

This convenient pocket guide features an overview of the history and culture of Helsinki along with a few color photographs and maps. (SCN47, $13.99)

A Traveller's History of Russia

A Traveller's History of Russia


by Peter Neville

  • HISTORY
  • 2006
  • 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)

Echoes of a Native Land, Two Centuries of a Russian Village

Echoes of a Native Land, Two Centuries of a Russian Village


by Serge Schmemann

  • CULTURAL PORTRAIT
  • 1999
  • PAPER
  • 350 PAGES

The author draws on his knowledge of Russia, family photographs, letters and memoirs to tell the story of the czarist past and present realities of his ancestral home outside Moscow. (RUS27, $19.00)

Helsinki, A Cultural and Literary History

Helsinki, A Cultural and Literary History


by Neil Kent

  • HISTORY
  • 2004
  • PAPER
  • 247 PAGES

A literary guide to Helsinki, its history and culture, organized into three sections: city of architects and engineers; city of music and arts; and city of hospitality. With maps and black-and-white illustrations. (SCN33, $15.00)

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, $17.00)

Natasha's Dance, A Cultural History of Russia

Natasha's Dance, A Cultural History of Russia


by Orlando Figes

  • CULTURAL PORTRAIT
  • 2003
  • PAPER
  • 768 PAGES

In this lively cultural history, Figes looks at both the great works by Russian masters and longstanding folk traditions. The title is drawn from a scene of Tolstoy's War and Peace in which a European-educated countess performs a peasant dance. (RUS180, $23.00)

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)

Ten Days That Shook the World

Ten Days That Shook the World


by John Reed

  • HISTORY
  • 2007
  • PAPER
  • 368 PAGES

An eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution by an American journalist, a political classic that captures the spirit of those heady days of excitement and idealism before disillusion and cynicism set in. (RUS13, $13.00)

St. Petersburg, Architecture of the Tsars

St. Petersburg, Architecture of the Tsars


by Dmitri Shvidkovsky | Alexander Orloff

  • ART & ARCHITECTURE
  • 1996
  • HARD COVER
  • 360 PAGES

This definitive book presents Baroque masterpieces of Peter the Great, Neoclassic confections of Catherine the Great and Art Nouveau glitter of Nicholas II in splendid color photographs. (RUS152, $95.00)

The Art and Architecture of Russia

The Art and Architecture of Russia


by George Hamilton | Judith Gordon

  • ART & ARCHITECTURE
  • 1992
  • PAPER
  • 482 PAGES

An elegantly written introduction to the art and architecture of Russia. Published in 1954, it's a good handbook for the traveler that goes beyond Moscow and St. Petersburg. Includes 314 black-and-white illustrations. (RUS38, $35.00)

Catherine the Great

Catherine the Great


by Henri Troyat

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 1994
  • PAPER
  • 377 PAGES

One of the world's best biographers paints an unforgettable portrait of Catherine, the monarch of Russia's Enlightenment. (RUS10, $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 turn-of-the-century St. Petersburg. (RUS28, $16.00)

Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina


by Leo Tolstoy | Larissa Volokhonsky | Richa Pevear

  • LITERATURE
  • 2004
  • PAPER
  • 838 PAGES

Pevear and Volokhonsky have brilliantly reinvented Tolstoy's epic tale of an adulterous affair between an aristocratic woman and an officer in late 19th Century Russia for a new generation of readers, capturing the rhythms, repetitions and speech of the original Russian. (RUS81, $17.00)

Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment


by Fyodor Dostoevsky | David McDuff

  • LITERATURE
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 647 PAGES

Dostoevsky's thriller of murder and redemption is redolent of St. Petersburg's atmosphere. A cornerstone of Russian literature, and one of the greatest detective stories ever told. (RUS18, $15.00)

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 Siege

The Siege


by Helen Dunmore

  • LITERATURE
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 304 PAGES

The 1941 siege of Leningrad is the backdrop for this affecting novel of one Russian family's attempts to survive during the darkest hours of World War II. (RUS258, $13.00)

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. The series continues with: The Turkish Gambit (RUS263), set during the 1877 Russo-Turkish War; Murder on the Leviathan (RUS225), an homage to Christie; and The Death of Achilles (RUS291), back in Moscow. Fandorin is deputy to the governor-general of czarist Moscow in Special Assignments (RUS371), facing a serial murder and a swindler. (RUS210, $15.00)

To the Hermitage

To the Hermitage


by Malcolm Bradbury

  • LITERATURE
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 510 PAGES
  • OUT OF PRINT

Bradbury's spirited, time-spanning novel, involving French philosopher Diderot, Catherine the Great, a 1990s English professor in St. Petersburg and contemporary politics. (RUS153, $16.95)

More Recommendations

Here are some other groups of books that might be of interest

Longitude provides recommended reading for travelers in partnership with the leading tour operators and travel programs for hundreds of destinations worldwide. We've got the classic, new and hard-to-find books and maps to help you get the most out of your adventures.