Hang your steaming-wet overcoat to dry beside a roaring fire, brew some tea in the samovar and settle down to absorb the atmosphere of Moscow as it seeps from each of these delightful stories. The stories range in time from an early melodrama of 1792 to a contemporary account by Maria Galina of a man lost in the modern city. There are two wonderful Chekhov stories here, but even more exquisitely crafted are Kazakov's A Couple in December, from 1962, a love story with cross-country skiing, and Koval's The Red Gates, from 1984, a humorous story of a young lad and his dog. In his account of the utter silence of life in Lefortovo isolation prison in Moscow, written specially for this collection, Igor Sutyagin says that, if you don't like Moscow, you just haven't found your Moscow. There is a Moscow for everyone here. The book is beautifully printed, with a charming black-and-white photograph prefacing each story, learned footnotes and even a map of the Moscow metro.
