FortochkaMoscow Monumental by Katherine ZubovichThroughout his regime, Stalin was obsessed with massive building projects which would act as a further strand of propaganda, offering a…5 min read·May 9, 2021----
FortochkaThe Volga by Janet M. HartleyNotes I made as I read this excellent book — I’d imagine they are fairly pointless and boring to read!5 min read·Feb 12, 2021----
FortochkaMalinovka Heights (or The Precipice) by Ivan Goncharov‘But life overtakes us all, and it will overtake you too! What will you do when it catches you unprepared?’4 min read·Jan 25, 2021----
FortochkaNYRB’s Selected Stories of Nikolai LeskovJust some notes I made as I read this. Putting them here because I didn’t know what else to do with them.3 min read·Jan 4, 2021----
FortochkaA Reader’s Companion to Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita by J.A.E. CurtisOn a visit to Moscow, I once stayed in an apartment which was directly opposite the one Bulgakov occupied when he first arrived in the…4 min read·Jan 18, 2020----
FortochkaA History of Russian LiteratureThis is just a summary of notes I made while I read this whopper. Probably very dull to read and very little original thought — just…6 min read·Jan 11, 2020----
FortochkaThe Anna Karenina Fix by Viv GroskopWhat would Nabokov have made of the Kardashians, if he were given the chance to meet them? What might Dostoevsky have thought about R…2 min read·Oct 18, 2017----
FortochkaMadness Treads Lightly by Polina DashkovaThe Amazon Crossing imprint, on which this translation of a 1998 Russian crime novel is published, can seem a little mercenary. I’m not…2 min read·Oct 6, 2017----
FortochkaRiot Days by Maria Alyokhina‘The first hunger strike is like love — very confusing. Later, you get used to it; but the first time there is only pain, leg cramps…2 min read·Sep 23, 2017----
FortochkaRed Famine by Anne Applebaum‘As the human being died in them, the wild beast came to the surface. I saw one woman who’d been brought to the district center under…5 min read·Sep 21, 2017----