Catherine the Great was a prolific letter writer and her missives offer a uniquely intimate view of her personal life and political development (to say nothing of her humor and passion).

Living on ice, the boorocracy, profiling perps, naming cities, and where smoking holds sway.

How salt riots and a young tsar led to a Zemsky Sobor and a new body of laws, The Council Code.

Even today, 165 years after his birth, Vladimir Gilyarovsky - journalist, poet and writer of prose - is widely revered, especially among Muscovites.

On this day 345 years ago, Alexander Menshikov was born into a poor peasant family. No one could have predicted to what heights he would rise.

Everyone in Russia knows the great writer Ivan Turgenev, whose 200th birthday is today, and they make his acquaintance in three stages. 

A look back at year end stock-taking, at changes that have been promised in years past, and promises that have been un-kept.

In which we review The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessions from Russian Literature, by Viv Groskop, and Restless Empire, by Ian Barnes.

President Vladimir Putin has elevated the philosopher Ivan Ilyin by referring to his ideas in speeches and even making works by Ilyin required reading. We delve into his murky past.

Thousands of war refugees are flooding Europe from the East. No, this is not a story of today, but of the world a century ago.

An American writer consumed by Anna Karenina goes in search of the great writer’s little-known refuge beyond the Volga, near Samara.

In Soviet times the Bolsheviks got all the credit for simplifying Russian spelling in 1918. Who really pushed that simplification through - and what did the Bolsheviks actually do to help?