This book is a vivid account of life in Moscow, -the most Russian of Russian cities, - in the year 1903, a year before Russia's disastrous war with Japan and two years before the momentous Revolution of 1905. Though the undercurrents of social change were running swiftly, the surface stability of the Tsarist regime show no indication of the turmoil ahead. The author, who is perhaps best known for his biography Tolstoy, describes Russian life through the eyes of a fictional young Englishman visiting a prosperous Russian merchant family. All facets of Moscow life are covered, from entertainment...