-
The House of Government
- A Saga of the Russian Revolution
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 45 hrs and 9 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $39.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Natasha's Dance
- A Cultural History of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 29 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning in the 18th century with the building of St. Petersburg - a 'window on the West' - and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself - its character, spiritual essence and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works - by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall - with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world.
-
-
A Kaleidescopic panorama of an enigmatic culture.
- By Tarquin on 02-13-19
By: Orlando Figes
-
A People’s Tragedy
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 47 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Opening with a panorama of Russian society, from the cloistered world of the Tsar to the brutal life of the peasants, A People’s Tragedy follows workers, soldiers, intellectuals and villagers as their world is consumed by revolution and then degenerates into violence and dictatorship. Drawing on vast original research, Figes conveys above all the shocking experience of the revolution for those who lived it, while providing the clearest and most cogent account of how and why it unfolded.
-
-
Excellent detailed history
- By privacy on 01-07-19
By: Orlando Figes
-
The Whisperers
- Private Life in Stalin's Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 29 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on a huge range of sources - letters, memoirs, conversations - Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin. Those who shaped the political system became, very frequently, its victims. Those who were its victims were frequently quite blameless. The Whisperers recreates the sort of maze in which Russians found themselves, where an unwitting wrong turn could either destroy a family or, perversely, later save it: a society in which everyone spoke in whispers - whether to protect themselves, their families, neighbours or friends - or to inform on them.
-
-
A Real Life Dystopian Nightmare
- By The History Club on 08-31-18
By: Orlando Figes
-
Collapse
- The Fall of the Soviet Union
- By: Vladislav M. Zubok
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 23 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1945, the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong, 5,000 nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward, the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the 20th century.
-
-
Throughly Fantastic History
- By Amazon Customer on 12-30-21
-
The Great Terror
- A Reassessment
- By: Robert Conquest
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 30 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The definitive work on Stalin's purges, The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968. While the original volume had relied heavily on unofficial sources, later developments within the Soviet Union provided an avalanche of new material, which Conquest has mined to write this revised and updated edition of his classic work.
-
-
Stalin's Gangster State
- By Michael Moore on 03-27-13
By: Robert Conquest
-
Crimea
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Malk Williams
- Length: 20 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The terrible conflict that dominated the mid-19th century, the Crimean War, killed at least 800,000 men and pitted Russia against a formidable coalition of Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire. It was a war for territory, provoked by fear that if the Ottoman Empire were to collapse then Russia could control a huge swathe of land from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf. But it was also a war of religion, driven by a fervent, populist and ever more ferocious belief by the Tsar and his ministers that it was Russia's task to rule all Orthodox Christians and control the Holy Land.
-
-
Outstanding History of the Crimean War
- By Rick Sailor on 11-08-18
By: Orlando Figes
-
Natasha's Dance
- A Cultural History of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 29 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning in the 18th century with the building of St. Petersburg - a 'window on the West' - and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself - its character, spiritual essence and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works - by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall - with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world.
-
-
A Kaleidescopic panorama of an enigmatic culture.
- By Tarquin on 02-13-19
By: Orlando Figes
-
A People’s Tragedy
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 47 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Opening with a panorama of Russian society, from the cloistered world of the Tsar to the brutal life of the peasants, A People’s Tragedy follows workers, soldiers, intellectuals and villagers as their world is consumed by revolution and then degenerates into violence and dictatorship. Drawing on vast original research, Figes conveys above all the shocking experience of the revolution for those who lived it, while providing the clearest and most cogent account of how and why it unfolded.
-
-
Excellent detailed history
- By privacy on 01-07-19
By: Orlando Figes
-
The Whisperers
- Private Life in Stalin's Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 29 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on a huge range of sources - letters, memoirs, conversations - Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin. Those who shaped the political system became, very frequently, its victims. Those who were its victims were frequently quite blameless. The Whisperers recreates the sort of maze in which Russians found themselves, where an unwitting wrong turn could either destroy a family or, perversely, later save it: a society in which everyone spoke in whispers - whether to protect themselves, their families, neighbours or friends - or to inform on them.
-
-
A Real Life Dystopian Nightmare
- By The History Club on 08-31-18
By: Orlando Figes
-
Collapse
- The Fall of the Soviet Union
- By: Vladislav M. Zubok
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 23 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1945, the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong, 5,000 nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward, the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the 20th century.
-
-
Throughly Fantastic History
- By Amazon Customer on 12-30-21
-
The Great Terror
- A Reassessment
- By: Robert Conquest
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 30 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The definitive work on Stalin's purges, The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968. While the original volume had relied heavily on unofficial sources, later developments within the Soviet Union provided an avalanche of new material, which Conquest has mined to write this revised and updated edition of his classic work.
-
-
Stalin's Gangster State
- By Michael Moore on 03-27-13
By: Robert Conquest
-
Crimea
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Malk Williams
- Length: 20 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The terrible conflict that dominated the mid-19th century, the Crimean War, killed at least 800,000 men and pitted Russia against a formidable coalition of Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire. It was a war for territory, provoked by fear that if the Ottoman Empire were to collapse then Russia could control a huge swathe of land from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf. But it was also a war of religion, driven by a fervent, populist and ever more ferocious belief by the Tsar and his ministers that it was Russia's task to rule all Orthodox Christians and control the Holy Land.
-
-
Outstanding History of the Crimean War
- By Rick Sailor on 11-08-18
By: Orlando Figes
-
The Russian Revolution
- By: Richard Pipes
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 41 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Groundbreaking in its inclusiveness, enthralling in its narrative of a movement whose purpose, in the words of Leon Trotsky, was "to overthrow the world", The Russian Revolution draws conclusions that aroused great controversy. Richard Pipes argues convincingly that the Russian Revolution was an intellectual, rather than a class, uprising; that it was steeped in terror from its very outset; and that it was not a revolution at all but a coup d'etat - "the capture of governmental power by a small minority."
-
-
Destruction of the Lenin Myth
- By philip on 09-08-19
By: Richard Pipes
-
Stalin, Volume I
- Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
- By: Stephen Kotkin
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 38 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume One of Stalin begins and ends in January 1928 as Stalin boards a train bound for Siberia, about to embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He is now the ruler of the largest country in the world, but a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. In Siberia, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted.
-
-
Excellent Book But First Time Listener Beware
- By Nostromo on 03-23-15
By: Stephen Kotkin
-
Gulag
- A History
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 27 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gulag - a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners - was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost.
-
-
Nice compliment to Solzhenitsyn
- By Thucydides on 08-03-17
By: Anne Applebaum
-
Collision of Empires
- The War on the Eastern Front in 1914
- By: Prit Buttar
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 21 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fighting that raged in the East during the First World War was every bit as fierce as that on the Western Front, but the titanic clashes between three towering empires - Russia, Austro-Hungary, and Germany - remains a comparatively unknown facet of the Great War. With the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the war in 2014, Collision of Empires is a timely expose of the bitter fighting on this forgotten front - a clash that would ultimately change the face of Europe forever.
-
-
Best book non-fiction book ever on the Eastern Front in 1914
- By HistoricalReader on 01-31-18
By: Prit Buttar
-
The Napoleonic Wars
- By: Alexander Mikaberidze
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 35 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Napoleonic Wars saw fighting on an unprecedented scale in Europe and the Americas. It took the wealth of the British Empire, combined with the might of the continental armies, almost two decades to bring down one of the world's greatest military leaders and the empire that he had created. Napoleon's ultimate defeat was to determine the history of Europe for almost 100 years. From the frozen wastelands of Russia, through the brutal fighting in the Peninsula to the blood-soaked battlefield of Waterloo, this book tells the story of the dramatic rise and fall of the Napoleonic Empire.
-
-
No description of battles
- By John Gaston on 01-15-21
-
Revolution 1989
- The Fall of the Soviet Empire
- By: Victor Sebestyen
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 18 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than 40 years, communism held eight European nations in its iron fist. Yet by the end of 1989, all of these nations had thrown off communism, declared independence, and embarked on the road to democracy.
-
-
Unsurpassed
- By Mike From Mesa on 06-28-12
By: Victor Sebestyen
-
The Third Reich in Power
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 31 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The definitive account of Germany's malign transformation under Hitler's total rule and the implacable march to war. This magnificent second volume of Richard J. Evans's three-volume history of Nazi Germany was hailed by Benjamin Schwartz of The Atlantic Monthly as "the definitive English-language account... gripping and precise." It chronicles the incredible story of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule.
-
-
Good but annoying
- By Joanne on 12-22-10
By: Richard J. Evans
-
The Gates of Europe
- A History of Ukraine
- By: Serhii Plokhy
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ukraine is currently embroiled in a tense battle with Russia to preserve its economic and political independence. But today's conflict is only the latest in a long history of battles over Ukraine's existence as a sovereign nation. As award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues in The Gates of Europe, we must examine Ukraine's past in order to understand its fraught present and likely future.
-
-
A Timely History
- By Mike on 01-04-17
By: Serhii Plokhy
-
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
- A History of Nazi Germany
- By: William L. Shirer
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 57 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer’s monumental study of Hitler’s German empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of the 20th century’s blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print around the globe, it has attained the status of a vital and enduring classic.
-
-
Narrative possesses listener, it's that good
- By Gary on 10-08-12
-
Bloodlands
- Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
- By: Timothy Snyder
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 19 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required listening for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.
-
-
Humanity lost
- By RPB on 01-27-19
By: Timothy Snyder
-
Lenin
- The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror
- By: Victor Sebestyen
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris
- Length: 20 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on new research, including the diaries, memoirs, and personal letters of both Lenin and his friends, Victor Sebestyen's unique biography - the first in English in nearly two decades - is not only a political examination of one of the most important historical figures of the 20th century but a portrait of Lenin the man. Unexpectedly, Lenin was someone who loved nature, hunting, and fishing and could identify hundreds of species of plants, a despotic ruler whose closest ties and friendships were with women.
-
-
Lenin totally took an extra piece of that cake.
- By John Gathly on 05-14-19
By: Victor Sebestyen
-
Young Stalin
- By: Simon Sebag Montefiore
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Stalin tells the story of an exceptional, charismatic, darkly turbulent young man born into obscurity, fancying himself a poet and a priest, and finally embracing revolutionary idealism as his Messianic mission in life. Equal parts scholar and terrorist, a mastermind of bank robberies, extortion, piracy, and murder, he was so impressive in his brutality that Lenin made him, along with Trotsky, his chief henchman.
-
-
Really Good Read/Listen
- By Jim on 02-20-11
Publisher's Summary
On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction.
The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment. Written in the tradition of Tolstoy's War and Peace, Grossman's Life and Fate, and Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, Yuri Slezkine's gripping narrative tells the true story of the residents of an enormous Moscow apartment building where top Communist officials and their families lived before they were destroyed in Stalin's purges. A vivid account of the personal and public lives of Bolshevik true believers, the book begins with their conversion to Communism and ends with their children's loss of faith and the fall of the Soviet Union.
Completed in 1931, The House of Government, later known as The House on the Embankment, was located across the Moscow River from the Kremlin. The largest residential building in Europe, it combined 505 furnished apartments with public spaces that included everything from a movie theater and a library to a tennis court and a shooting range. Slezkine tells the chilling story of how the building's residents lived in their apartments and ruled the Soviet state until some 800 of them were evicted from the house and led, one by one, to prison or their deaths.
Drawing on letters, diaries, and interviews, The House of Government weaves together biography, literary criticism, architectural history, and fascinating new theories of revolutions, millennial prophecies, and reigns of terror. The result is an unforgettable human saga of a building that, like the Soviet Union itself, became a haunted house, forever disturbed by the ghosts of the disappeared.
More from the same
What listeners say about The House of Government
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Edward V. Blanchard
- 11-05-17
Inside saga of the leaders of Bolshevism & the USSR
What a generous & magisterial book! Basically the story of a wide group of leaders, intellectuals & senior bureaucrats and their families, most of whom lived at one time or other in the House of Govt. From the pre-revolutionary backgrounds thru the Oct Revolution, building the new Communist state, collectivization, the 5 year plans, the Great Terror & then the Great Patriotic War. This is s deep social, cultural & intellectual history of how a Bolshevik sect became the state religion of a great country, but it reads more like Tolstoy of “War & Peace”! Lots of Russian names & families to keep track of. Long, but fascinating, subtle, generous & sympathetic, but never “rose tinted”. Most highly recommended! Reader was easy to listen to, with the right balance of seriousness (& occasionally, irony).
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mark
- 11-23-17
Haunting tour of the temple of the failed deity
Engrossing relatable stories, often in their own words, of the thinkers who envisioned the Soviet state. Story after story illuminate the theories and ideals that led to the tragedy that followed.
13 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- TheWatchmaker
- 12-12-17
fantastic portrait of the Soviet revolution
a masterpiece. sweeping and grand in scope. a must read for students of Russian/Soviet history.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Fiona Chalom
- 04-29-19
Amazing
The author is encyclopedic in the research, truly amazing. The narrator is wonderful and his voice is mesmerizing. I highly recommend this book, as I would not have read it as it is so long but listening made it compelling and fascinating.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- brian
- 09-07-17
An ultimate history.
Would you listen to The House of Government again? Why?
I would.
What did you like best about this story?
The history it presented, some of which I hadn't heard of.
Which character – as performed by Stefan Rudnicki – was your favorite?
All of them, not bad for a narrator I hadn't heard of before.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
The fates of some of Stalin's "enemies" made me cry, Bukharin's especially.
Any additional comments?
/A must-have for fans of Soviet history.
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- J.Brock
- 06-30-18
Epic. Be patient and stay the course.
This is a historical narrative that demands patience. It starts out a bit obscure, and stays that way for the first 5-6 hours. Maybe a little longer. Then it starts to piece together. It’s captivating, engrossing, and extraordinary, once you get past the initial confusion. One thing that would be very helpful is a graph of some sort, as there are so many characters and overlapping storylines. It’s a generational saga, one not to be overlooked. But it will definitely require a second and 3rd listen!!
Stefan Rudnicki is a brilliant narrator, and perfect for the book, with his rich, textured voice. Perfection.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jason Baumbach
- 03-23-21
Not enough interpretation of history
It feels as though the author is presenting undigested biographical snippets while leaving their interpretation to readers -- something Solzhenitsyn explicitly frowned upon.
However, chapters 6-8 (if I recall) are still fascinating reflections on religion -- much as Gibbon's chapters on Christianity continue to be worth rereading long after taking in the entire decline and fall.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Elocutus55
- 06-23-19
For the history fan...
Those who are interested in The history of the roots of Soviet Bolshevism, this is an expansive and fascinating look at the dynamics of the Soviet Union’s origins and development. Using the ambitious building of “The House of Government” building in Moscow as a lens, the author weaves social and biographical details into a terrific story.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Marcus Caris
- 11-11-18
A Powerful Argument, mired in minutiae
This is a deeply researched book about the moral and artistic underpinnings of the Russian Revolution. There are however so many long examples and so many people mentioned that it is daunting for the reader to keep it all in their head. However the arguments are so compelling that I’d still recommend the book but with the caution that there will be moments that the explanation of the plots of dozens of soviet era novels may be a slog.
#tagsgiving #sweepstakes
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- T. Anderson
- 09-15-17
A people's history of the Soviet Union.
I've been reading historical and biographical books on the Soviet Union since I became aware that there was such a thing as history, more than 45 years ago. Nothing I have ever read comes close to painting the day to day struggle of the Soviet people to not only survive but to avoid being exterminated or sent to dissappear in the Gulag.
Disturbingly, the author points out unmistakable simalarities in Western countries that while not as extreme as in the Soviet world, nevertheless destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of "free" and completely innocent people. A tale that should never cease to be told and most importantly, remembered.
11 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 08-30-18
Well researched but lacks structure or narrative
This is an extremely well researched book about living during the Russian revolution, and it includes hundreds of overlapping stories, following citizens from the start of the Russian revolution on. But unless you are already well-versed with the subject matter, this book remains opaque and shapeless, as the narrator does not take very much time to outline events or explain the reasoning behind what is included, or to draw conclusions from the primary material collected here.
The author jumps from theory to theory – the main thesis being a reading of the Russian revolution as a modern millenarian cult – and while this starts strong, no simple narrative of the revolution is developed on which to hang these theories. Large events, like the details of the revolution itself, are skimmed over or in some places skipped altogether, in favour of detailed extracts from letters, plays, novels et cetera. The book has a funny structure in which about a third is a series of excerpts from poems, plays and novels of the time – interesting as a way of giving flavour to the events, but I think they would make much more sense in text, where you could skim over them, or at least easily distinguish between what is quotation and what the narrator.
There is so much reading of these extracts from primary material that it becomes easy to lose any sense of authorial intention at all – once, about 11 hours into the book, the author reaches the house of government itself, the narrative plunges into several hours of letters between various inhabitants complaining about one another, asking for holiday time or funds for new coats, et cetera – all of which is laudable research but there is no serious effort to shape it into an overall narrative, or to draw strong conclusions about what this primary material adds up to. It's more showing you first-hand what life is like in this situation than a description.
In short this felt more to me like a scholastic exercise than a non-fiction work for a lay reader. Unless you already know the main players and history of the revolution intimately, and are eager for substantial primary material about the day to day lives of those involved, you may not enjoy this book.
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- North Yorkshire
- 05-09-20
It's like listening to an encyclopedia!
This is a massive tome - I took one look at the physical book and immediately plumped for the Audible version! The book presents Soviet Russia through the lens of the House of Government - Boris Iofan's housing block built in the 20s for Soviet mid-ranking high-ups. It was particularly ravaged in the Terror, roughly the period 1934-7.
But on Audible it is still a whopper of a book and there is not really a driving narrative. At 46hrs it did take me over a month to get through. It is like listening to a series of interesting articles a format that does give it a bit of a put-downable quality. I also think the physical book / e-book version has quite a few photos in - of people and places - which I think would have helped me navigate around the mass of information.
Overall, It can be bitty, episodic, and confusing (some effort is required to piece together an overall narrative). But, it's all in there somewhere and I can genuinely say that I learned a lot! I learned about various Soviet ideas on architecture, work (lots of it), marriage (sounds chaotic!), business networking, literature (a big theme in the book), individual ambitions, collect loyalties, childhood hobbies - not to mention the biographical details of a number of residents of the House of Government. The author would list the names here - there's a lot of listing in there.
The stand out bit, for me, was the sections on Soviet emotions and attitudes. The residents seemed genuinely invested in the Soviet system, even as it turned against so many of the residents in the House of Government. The author explains the excitement and shows what the Soviet system gave its people. The lives of some of the children are followed - from their enthusiasms, friendships and ambitions to their later lives of privilege or most often suffering, orphanhood and Gulag. But even here they are loyal and in the kind treatment many received in dire conditions that loyalty was rewarded. This was really touching.
I am really pleased I read/heard all this because it was different enough from other books I had read on the subject. I got a more rounded sense of what life might have felt like and why. I imagine if I listen back again I will notice more things and get even more out of it. But i will have to build up my stamina reserves first!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Sergei
- 07-16-19
Perfect story perfectly ruined (for me)
I am only 3 chapters into the book, but the story is totally captivating, and I am looking forward to the rest of it. But I am also returning this audio version and buying the physical book instead. I am quite used to certain 'Anglicizing' of Russian proper names, but I was not remotely prepared to the total butchering of Russian toponyms, last names, and even first names (!) as delivered by this narrator. Half the names are barely recognizable (and I am familiar with virtually all characters), even stress is often on the wrong syllable. May not be such a big deal for some, as long as they can still follow the story.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Michael Rich
- 05-04-19
Remarkable
Absolutely tremendous book. so wide ranging that probably impossible to agree with everything. However, I think this is a must.
1 person found this helpful