An insight into Russia, February 24, 2004

I wish I had had this book when I was teaching Russian culture, in its broadest sense, in UK universities. Most students took up the subject on entering the university and therefore had no grounding in it at all. This book, rightly, assumes zero knowledge on the part of the reader, yet manages not to assume a condescending tone. On the contrary it is readable, up-to-date, informative and interesting. Even an old Russia hand like myself learned a great deal from it. The fact that one of the authors is Russian, the other English, gives them a particularly broad insight into their subject.

Reader from Kazan, Russia, February 21, 2004
Reviewer: A reader
As a Russian studying in the UK, I am often asked a lot of questions about Russia by my British and iternational friends. Very often I did not have the answers! So, I was actually looking for a suitable source on Russia. This excellent book is the best of this kind - it manages to compress a great deal of information and insights about all aspects of Russian life into just some 250 pages. It is refreshingly free of the usual stereotypes about Russia, but is still realistic. So, for a taste of what Russia is, I can certainly recommend this book.