Books set in Russia

I love book lists. They give me something to look to when I'm done with a really terrific book and don´t know what to read next.

This is a short list of books set in Russia which I particularly enjoyed. Since my interest in Russia is ongoing, I hope to add more books in time.

So, in no particular order...

1) The Kitchen Boy, by Robert Alexander

A fictional account of the last days of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, told from the point of view of the kitchen boy (hence the title). As you probably know, the Imperial Russian family was held prisoner in Ekaterinburg after the Revolution, and executed in secrecy in a cellar. For years rumours ran rampant, because nobody knew for certain if all had been executed or if someone had escaped. Anyway, this book deals with the days leading to the execution, and I found it fast paced and entertaining.

2) The Romanov Bride, by Robert Alexander

The bride in question is Elizabeth, the older sister of the last tsarina of Russia, a woman who has been mostly forgotten in history but who led a quite interesting life. Rumored to be one of the most beautiful women in Europe, Elizabeth married the powerful uncle of the last tsar. After she became a widow she decided to dedicate her life to God and the poor, funded a convent and became the abbess. As most of her family during the Russian Revolution, she was also killed by the Reds, in quite an awful way.
The book is quite interesting, because it tells the story of Elizabeth in parallel to the life of a poor revolutionary, Pavel, who is one of the men who will kill her. You see the two sides of the coin in the years leading to the Russian revolution: the pampered, claustrophobic life of a woman of the aristocracy, and the hardships and injustices that happened to most of the Russian people. It also has a nice twist at the end.

3) Nicholas and Alexandra, by Robert K. Massie

This is a biography of the last Tsar of Russia and his wife. It's mostly about their personal relationship and family life, with also a description of their captivity and execution. It was written before the whole mystery of the Romanovs was solved, so it might be a little outdated, but anyway it's an interesting read about one of the royal couples who actually married for love, and stayed in love for their whole life.

4) Gulag Archipielago, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Also nonfiction. Based on his experiences and those of his camp mates, Solzhenitsyn makes an account of the labor camps set by Stalin in the Soviet Union, and heavily criticizes the system.

5) The First Circle, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Fiction, although heavily based on Solzhenitsyn experiences as a labor camp prisoner. The story starts with Innokenti Volodin, a party member with a promising diplomatic career, who is debating whether or not to call an eminent scientific to warn him of an incoming arrest. Meanwhile, in a sharashka - a labor camp set only for scientifics - the inmates are working in a device that will allow the secret police to identify telephone callers based on their voice characteristics. Through the book, the lifes of the inmates unfold, with all their miseries and hardships, although, in the Gulag camp system, they're in a place akin to the first circle of hell, while the NKGB net closes around Volodin.

6) One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, by Alexander Solzhenitzyn

Fiction, also based in Solzhenitsyn experiences as a Gulag prisoner. Ivan Denisovich is a prisoner who has been in the camps almost 10 years. He is supposed to be let free in one year's time, and he worries about what he'll do once he returns home. Meanwhile, life is limited to sneak food, achieve the work quota so their rations are not cut short, and try not to fall on the bad side of any of the guards in the icy emptiness of Siberia.

7) Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith

Thriller, based on a true serial murderer in the Soviet Union.
In the Soviet Union, communism has made all men equals, and nobody wants for anything, so crime doesn't exist. At least, that is what Stalin's slogans says.
Leo Demidov is a gifted MGB agent, whose work consists in finding enemies of the state. However, when he falls in disgrace with his superiors and is banished to a remote town, his discovery of several murdered children will turn him into an enemy of the establishment. This is a fast paced thriller, in which our hero has to run all over Russia, escaping from the KGB while trying to find a killer.
This book is very good, fast paced, with a believable argument, well researched. I totally recommend it.

8) Koba and the twenty million, by Martin Amis

In this book, Martin Amis gives a short biography of Stalin, his forming years, and the multiple witch hunts and labor system that deprived Russia of almost 20 million of its people. It's a good read for starters who don't know much about what happened behind the Iron Curtain.

9) Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoievsky

There is something about Russian authors that I love, but that I don't know how to describe. However, Dostoievsky's masterpiece is a real pleasure to read, even if it has been labelled with the dreadful tag of "classic".
St. Petersburg, nineteen century. Raskolnikov, a poor student, murders a money-lender to prove to himself that he is capable of doing that, driven by high ideals. After the deed, however, he falls into a feverish state and becomes obssesed with his crime. His guilty conscience will cause him to behave in such a way as to raise the suspicions of inspector Porfiry.
It's mostly a psychological novel, with great descriptions of the life in the poor suburbs of Saint Petersburg.

10) Secret Fire, by Johanna Lindsey

This is a romance novel written in 1987, in which a Russian prince abducts a Bristish lady and takes her with him to Russia. There are great descriptions of life in Russia in a time when serfs still existed, not to mention that I really liked the Cinderella like love story.

11) The last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II, by Edvard Radzinsky

This is the book that started my obsession with Russia. Nicholas II kept a diary up to the day he died, and what Radzinsky did was take excerps of his diary and explain them, so we get to know Nicky through his own words. The book's great, but I felt sorry for Nicholas, who was a good man but totally inept when it came to ruling his country. Or maybe, at that time, with all of Europe in a revolutionary state, the huge, multicultural, and old-fashioned empire of Russia was like the Titanic after hitting the iceberg, and nothing could save her.

These are not books, but movies can tell some compelling stories as well.

- White Nights, 1985,with Mikhael Baryshnikov
Before acting as Carrie Bradshaw lover in Sex and the City, Mikhael Baryshnikov was a great ballet dancer. In this movie, he plays a famous russian ballet dancer who defected to the U.S. but is captured by the KGB when his plane is forced to land in Siberia. As part of soviet propaganda, he is forced to dance in the most famous theater in Leningrad, and to prevent him from running away, the KGB gets him a babysitter. His jailer is Gregory Hines, who plays an American tap dancer who in turn had defected to the Soviet Union and married a girl there. One of the highlights of the movie is the amazing dancing routine that both men do. I would see it again just to see Mikhael dance.

- Anastasia, 1956, with Ingrid Bergman
What can I say? Compelling, romantic story about a tormented heroine who tries to convince the members of the exiled Romanov family that she is truly Grand Duchess Anastasia.

- Rasputin, 1996, with Alan Rickman
It's a nice movie made for TV that follows the story of Grigori Rasputin as he gets to St. Petersburg and into the heart of the russian imperial family by being the only one who could calm Aleksei hemophiliac crisis.