Great reading that provides a sense of the city, from the Traveler online Ultimate Travel Library.
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Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (1877)
Written by Russia’s most celebrated novelist, Leo Tolstoy, the tome recounts the tragedy of a woman who violates the rigid sexual code of her time. Takes place partly in 19th-century Moscow.
Children of the Arbat, by Anatoli Rybakov (1987)
Anatoli Rybakov is the pseudonym of A.N. Aronov (1911-1998), a Russian intellectual who was sent into exile in the 1930s. This semi-autobiographical novel paints a vivid portrait of Russia on the eve of the Great Purges.
The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov (1967)
The Devil turns up in Moscow to cause all manner of anarchy and make fools of the powers-that-be. This darkly comic novel is the most telling fiction to come out of the Soviet Union.
Moscow To the End of the Line, by Venedikt Erofeev (1970)
Recounts a drunken man’s train trip to visit his lover and child on the outskirts of the capital. As the journey progresses, the tale becomes darker and more hallucinogenic.
On the Golden Porch, by Tatyana Tolstaya (1990)
Written by a distant descendent of Leo Tolstoy, this collection of short stories focuses on the mundane and tedious lives of ordinary—however eccentric—characters in 1990s Moscow.
