Russia Audiobooks | Travel

The Girl from the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia

The prizewinning memoir of one of the world's great writers, about coming of age and finding her voice amid the hardships of Stalinist Russia Born across the street from the Kremlin in the opulent Metropol Hotel-the setting of the New York Times bestselling novel A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles-Ludmilla Petrushevskaya grew up in a family of Bolshevik intellectuals who were reduced in the wake of the Russian Revolution to waiting in bread lines. InThe Girl from the Metropol Hotel, her prizewinning memoir, she recounts her childhood of extreme deprivation-of wandering the streets like a young Edith Piaf, singing for alms, and living by her wits like Oliver Twist, a diminutive figure far removed from the heights she would attain as an internationally celebrated writer.As she unravels the threads of her itinerant upbringing-of feigned orphandom, of sleeping in freight cars and beneath the dining tables of communal apartments, of the fugitive pleasures of scraps of food-we see, both in her remarkable lack of self-pity and in the two dozen photographs throughout the text, her feral instinct and the crucible in which her gift for giving voice to a nation of survivors was forged. 'From heartrending facts Petrushevskaya concocts a humorous and lyrical account of the toughest childhood and youth imaginable. . . . It [belongs] alongside the classic stories of humanity's beloved plucky child heroes: Edith Piaf, Charlie Chaplin, the Artful Dodger, Gavroche, David Copperfield. . . . The child is irresistible and so is the adult narrator who creates a poignant portrait from the rags and riches of her memory.' -Anna Summers, from the Introduction From the Trade Paperback edition.

Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (Author), Kate Mulgrew, Kate Mulgrew (Narrator)

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Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd, Russia, 1917 - A World on the Edge

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanov Sisters, Caught in the Revolution is Helen Rappaport's masterful telling of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution through eye-witness accounts left by foreign nationals who saw the drama unfold. Between the first revolution in February 1917 and Lenin's Bolshevik coup in October, Petrograd (the former St Petersburg) was in turmoil felt nowhere more keenly than on the fashionable Nevsky Prospekt. There, the foreign visitors who filled hotels, clubs, offices and embassies were acutely aware of the chaos breaking out on their doorsteps and beneath their windows. Among this disparate group were journalists, diplomats, businessmen, bankers, governesses, volunteer nurses and expatriate socialites. Many kept diaries and wrote letters home: from an English nurse who had already survived the sinking of the Titanic; to the black valet of the US Ambassador, far from his native Deep South; to suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, who had come to Petrograd to inspect the indomitable Women's Death Battalion led by Maria Bochkareva. Helen Rappaport draws upon this rich trove of material, much of it previously unpublished, to carry us right up to the action to see, feel and hear the Revolution as it happened to an assortment of individuals who suddenly felt themselves trapped in a "red madhouse." This program includes a bonus interview with the author and her editor.

Helen Rappaport (Author), Xe Sands (Narrator)

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Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy, 1905-1953

An epic history of science in the Soviet Union, following the scientists who survived Stalin's rule and helped to reshape the world Scientists throughout history, from Galileo to today's experts on climate change, have often had to contend with politics in their pursuit of knowledge. But in the Soviet Union, where the ruling elites embraced, patronized, and even fetishized science like never before, scientists lived their lives on a knife edge. The Soviet Union had the best-funded scientific establishment in history. Scientists were elevated as popular heroes and lavished with awards and privileges. But if their ideas or their field of study lost favor with the elites, they could be exiled, imprisoned, or murdered. And yet they persisted, making major contributions to 20th century science. Stalin and the Scientists tells the story of the many gifted scientists who worked in Russia from the years leading up to the Revolution through the death of the "Great Scientist" himself, Joseph Stalin. It weaves together the stories of scientists, politicians, and ideologues into an intimate and sometimes horrifying portrait of a state determined to remake the world. They often wreaked great harm. Stalin was himself an amateur botanist, and by falling under the sway of dangerous charlatans like Trofim Lysenko (who denied the existence of genes), and by relying on antiquated ideas of biology, he not only destroyed the lives of hundreds of brilliant scientists, he caused the death of millions through famine. But from atomic physics to management theory, and from radiation biology to neuroscience and psychology, these Soviet experts also made breakthroughs that forever changed agriculture, education, and medicine. A masterful book that deepens our understanding of Russian history, Stalin and the Scientists is a great achievement of research and storytelling, and a gripping look at what happens when science falls prey to politics.

Simon Ings (Author), Tim Bruce (Narrator)

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Lara: The Untold Love Story and the Inspiration for Doctor Zhivago

The heartbreaking story of the love affair between Boris Pasternak, the author of Doctor Zhivago, and Olga Ivinskaya—the true tragedy behind the timeless classic. When Stalin came into power in 1924, the Communist government began persecuting dissident writers. Though Stalin spared the life of Boris Pasternak—whose novel-in-progress, Doctor Zhivago, was suspected of being anti-Soviet—he persecuted Boris’s mistress, typist, and literary muse, Olga Ivinskaya. Boris’s affair with Olga devastated the straitlaced Pasternaks, and they were keen to disavow Olga’s role in Boris’s writing process. Twice Olga was sentenced to work in Siberian labor camps, where she was interrogated about the book Boris was writing, but she refused to betray the man she loved. When Olga was released from the gulags, she assumed that Boris would leave his wife for her but, trapped by his family’s expectations and his own weak will, he never did. Drawing on previously neglected family sources and original interviews, Anna Pasternak explores this hidden act of moral compromise by her great-uncle, and restores to history the passionate affair that inspired and animated Doctor Zhivago. Devastated that Olga suffered on his behalf and frustrated that he could not match her loyalty to him, Boris instead channeled his thwarted passion for Olga into the love story in Doctor Zhivago. Filled with the rich detail of Boris’s secret life, Lara unearths a moving love story of courage, loyalty, suffering, drama, and loss, and casts a new light on the legacy of Doctor Zhivago.

Anna Pasternak (Author), Antonia Beamish (Narrator)

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The House of the Dead: Siberian Exile Under the Tsars

A visceral, hundred-year history of the vast Russian penal colony. It was known as 'the vast prison without a roof.' From the beginning of the nineteenth century until the Russian Revolution, the tsars exiled more than one million prisoners and their families beyond the Ural Mountains to Siberia. Daniel Beer illuminates both the brutal realities of this inhuman system and the tragic and inspiring fates of those who endured it. Here are the vividly told stories of petty criminals and mass murderers, bookish radicals and violent terrorists, fugitives and bounty hunters, and the innocent women and children who followed their husbands and fathers into exile. Siberia was intended to serve not only as a dumping ground for criminals but also as a colony. Just as exile would purge Russia of its villains so too would it purge villains of their vices. In theory, Russia's most unruly criminals would be transformed into hardy frontiersmen and settlers. But in reality, the system peopled Siberia with an army of destitute and desperate vagabonds who visited a plague of crime on the indigenous population. Even the aim of securing law and order in the rest of the Empire met with disaster: Expecting Siberia also to provide the ultimate quarantine against rebellion, the tsars condemned generations of republicans, nationalists and socialists to oblivion thousands of kilometers from Moscow. Over the nineteenth century, however, these political exiles transformed Siberia's mines, settlements and penal forts into a virtual laboratory of revolution. Exile became the defining experience for the men and women who would one day rule the Soviet Union. Unearthing a treasure trove of new archival evidence, this masterly and original work tells the epic story of Russia's struggle to govern its prison continent and Siberia's own decisive influence on the political forces of the modern world. In The House of the Dead, Daniel Beer brings to light a dark and gripping reality of mythic proportions. From the Hardcover edition.

Daniel Beer (Author), Arthur Morey (Narrator)

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A Very Expensive Poison: The Assassination of Alexander Litvinenko and Putin's War with the West

On November 1, 2006, journalist and Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London. He died twenty-two days later. The cause of death? Polonium—a rare, lethal, and highly radioactive substance. Here Luke Harding unspools a real-life political assassination story—complete with KGB, CIA, MI6, and Russian mobsters. He shows how Litvinenko’s murder foreshadowed the killings of other Kremlin critics, from Washington, DC, to Moscow, and how these are tied to Russia’s current misadventures in Ukraine and Syria. In doing so, he becomes a target himself and unearths a chain of corruption and death leading straight to Vladimir Putin. From his investigations of the downing of flight MH17 to the Panama Papers, Harding sheds a terrifying light on Russia’s fracturing relationship with the West. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Luke Harding (Author), Nicholas Guy Smith (Narrator)

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5 famous english historical figures

Five famous English historical figures, five controversial characters of almost legendary proportions, that have to be well-known and understood if one is interested in knowing about the English spirit and history. Sir Francis Drake was a sea captain and a privateer of the Elizabethan era; his exploits made him a hero to the English, but his privateering led the Spanish to brand him a pirate. Henry VIII was King in a time of extreme religious unrest, and became such a bloody monster that he was eventually called the "English Nero". Richard III is one of the most divisive and enigmatic figures in British history. His real tragedy was both personal and political; his story, replete with intrigue, murder, war, and treachery. Son of a thug, Thomas Cromwell rose up from the back alleys of rural Putney to be Henry VIII's right hand man, and was destroyed in the moment of his greatest triumph, ending up on the scaffold; he was the mastermind behind Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. The King wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, and so used Cromwell to begin the breaking of the Catholic Church's power in England; the divorce was eventually pronounced, Anne married the King, and it all ended with her beheading. Discover the tumultuous and bloody history behind all of these fundamental characters.

James Gardner (Author), Katie Haigh (Narrator)

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14 russian tsars, russian history

The Russian Empire was the third largest empire in world history, stretching over three continents. It played a major role in 1812-1814 in defeating Napoleon's ambitions to control Europe and expanded to the west and south. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire extended from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea in the south, from the Baltic Sea on the west to the Pacific Ocean, and (until 1867) into Alaska in North America on the east. Its wide disparities bred dissidence and rebellions; along with its enormous size, this made it a challenge to govern for each one of its successive rulers. Learn about the history of the Russian Empire through the careful portrait of its ten greatest emperors, which led it through troubled times until its collapse during the February Revolution.

James Gardner (Author), Katie Haigh (Narrator)

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Peter I Called The Great

Peter the Great ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire, leading a cultural revolution based on the Enlightenment, modernizing and rationalizing the Russian social and political system. "All his qualities, indeed, were on a colossal scale. His rage was cyclonic: his hatred rarely stopped short of extermination. His banquets were orgies, his pastimes convulsions. He lived and he loved like one of the giants of old". Discover the life and struggles of one of the most influential rulers through this precise, clear and thorough presentation.

James Gardner (Author), Katie Haigh (Narrator)

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Catherine II, Empress of Russia

Catherine the Great was Empress of Russia from 1762 until 1796, the country's longest-ruling female leader. She came to power following a coup d'état when her husband, Peter III, was assassinated. Under her reign, Russia was revitalised; it grew larger and stronger, and was recognised as one of the great powers of Europe. Discover the life and struggles of one of the most influential rulers through this precise, clear and thorough presentation.

James Gardner (Author), Katie Haigh (Narrator)

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Alexander Ist, Emperor of Russia

Tsar Alexander I was the grandson of Catherine the Great. He became Tsar after his father Paul I was murdered and ruled Russia during chaotic period of the Napoleonic Wars. In Russian history, he is known as "Alexander the Blessed." A legendary ruler, he led his country to one of her greatest triumphs, against Napoleon, although he was often viewed as an enigma by his contemporaries. Discover the life and struggles of one of the most influential rulers through this precise, clear and thorough presentation.

James Gardner (Author), Katie Haigh (Narrator)

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Nicholas I, emperor of Russia

Tsar Nicholas I was the younger brother of his predecessor, Alexander I. He "came to represent autocracy personified: infinitely majestic, determined and powerful, hard as stone, and relentless as fate". He inherited his brother's throne despite a revolt against him, and went on to become the most reactionary of all Russian leaders, leading an agressive policy involving many expensive wars. Discover the life and struggles of this influential ruler through this precise, clear and thorough presentation.

James Gardner (Author), Katie Haigh (Narrator)

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Russia Audiobooks in Travel