Growing up as an orphan, Razumou adopted the belief that all of Russia was his family, a sentiment that he carries into his higher education. Because of this, when talks of revolution start arising in Russia, Razumou decides to stay neutral. However, this becomes increasingly difficult when most of his classmates start to express their ardent support for a revolution. Still, Razumou decides not to take a stand on either side. Since he feels all of...

Through the story of the brilliant but conflicted young Raskolnikov and the murder he commits, Fyodor Dostoevsky explores the theme of redemption through suffering. Crime and Punishment put Dostoevsky at the forefront of Russian writers when it appeared in 1866.

Leningrad 1941: the white nights of summer illuminate a city of fallen grandeur whose beautiful palaces and stately avenues speak of a different age, when Leningrad was known as St Petersburg. Two sisters, Tatiana and Dasha, share the same bed, living in one room with their brother and parents. It is a hard, impoverished life, yet the Metanovs know many who are not as fortunate as they. The family routine is shattered on 22 June 1941 when Hitler invades...

In 1913 Russia, twelve-year-old Katya eagerly anticipates leaving her St. Petersburg home, though not her older cousin Misha, to join her mother, a lady in waiting in the household of Tsar Nicholas II, but the ensuing years bring world war, revolution, and undreamed of changes to her life.

Russia, 1910. Valentina Ivanova is the darling of St. Petersburg's elite aristocracy--until her romance with a Danish engineer creates a terrible scandal and her parents push her into a loveless engagement with a Russian count. Meanwhile, Russia itself is bound for rebellion. With the Tsar and the Duma at each other's throats, and the Bolsheviks drawing their battle lines, the elegance and opulence of Tsarist rule are in their last days. And Valentina...

Introducing Russian gangster Alexei Volkovoy. A firefight reverberates through Moscow's dark streets; shattered glass and screams echo in the air. In the lawless ways of Russia's capital city, the gunmen melt away into the night. Two men are dead--the targets not what they seem. A shadowy figure known as Volk lopes along the riverbank outside the Kremlin walls. A battle-hardened veteran of Russia's brutal war in Chechnya, he prowls Moscow's grim alleyways,...

1917- Sofiya and her friend Alina are forced to flee Russia as Tsar Nicolas II abdicates, and the Bolsheviks take control of St. Petersburg. Their parents sent them to America, where Alina's distant cousin lives, but soon the girls learn they have traded one danger for another. They are forced to ear a living in the most terrible way, and once again, both girls flee for their lives in separate directions. Years later, trapped in a bitter marriage,...