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Fyodor Dostoevsky. Biography, ideas, and major novels
On a cold winter morning in a Petersburg square, a group of condemned prisoners were led out for execution. Their death sentences were read aloud, they were dressed in white shrouds, the first...
Crime and Punishment. Summary and Analysis
The title alone seems to promise that the crime will be the main event around which the entire book revolves. But here's a surprising thing: the murder…
World-class Russian athletes. Top 10
From the outside, nothing connects them. A young figure skater who draws patterns on the ice to music, and a fighter who, over the course of their career...
Famous Russians in Hollywood. Actors and Actresses
In Hollywood, there's a special type, almost a separate profession: the Russian villain. The cold-blooded spy, the shadowy mafia boss, the stern general who pronounces English words…
Leo Tolstoy. Biography, major books, and personal life
On a deep autumn night, secretly, almost stealthily, an eighty-two-year-old man left his own home. He was not leaving out of poverty and...
Anna Karenina. A brief summary, characters, and the meaning of the novel
Some books have opening lines that are remembered even by those who never finished or even opened them. Specifically...
Nicholas II and the downfall of the Romanov family
The story of the last Russian Tsar is, above all, a story of family, and it is easier to understand if one keeps this in mind from the very beginning...
Alexander Pushkin. Biography, Works, and Major Poems
In Russia, Pushkin is everywhere. His fairy tales are read to little children before they can even speak, his lines have long since become proverbs, his...
Olivier: The True Recipe and History of The Russian Salad
Around the world, it's known as Russian salad. For a foreigner, Olivier is the very essence of a Russian feast, that very thing…
Peter the Great: How the Tsar Changed Russia
Imagine this for a moment. The sovereign of a vast empire, who is supposed to be seated on a throne in gold and receiving ambassadors, instead...