The author of the book began the war as a tank commander (KV-1S) and then served as the commander of a series of self-propelled artillery units (SU-122, SU-85) and ended the war commanding a T-34-85. He fought from Stalingrad to Koenigsberg.

The author was a Moscow literary critic, historian of Soviet literature, and writer. This book is a collection of articles, essays, feuilletons of the 80-90s, which the author describes in the forward: 'That was a time of hope, many of which, if you look from today, were not destined to come true. And although I never thought that the way out of that monstrous historical impasse into which the...

The first, modern, post-Soviet biography of the scientist-encyclopedist and poet Mikhail Lomonosov, one of the main pillars of modern Russian culture. The author used not only archival materials and documents, but also the writings of Lomonosov's contemporaries to complete the picture of the man in the context of his time.

The book examines Russia's failed attempts at creating an overseas Empire similar to Great Britain or France.

An air battle tactic first used in 1914 (by a Russian pilot), ramming the enemy's aircraft with your own was a last-ditch effort to stop a bombing raid. Russian pilots used this tactic over 1000 times during World War Two - often if their airplane was already damaged or out of ammunition. Unlike a kamikaze, these were not considered suicide missions, as the pilot might try to bail out after...

The 1930s constitute one of the tragic periods of Soviet history. In fact, at that time the country was in a state of civil war. The confrontation between the ‘upper classes and the lower classes’ can be considered an indisputable fact, and the result of this confrontation were millions of people – arrested, shot, exiled. Numerous trials of wreckers, spies, saboteurs, i.e. ‘enemies of the...

riveting, gritty accounts of some of the greatest German tank commanders, including Michael Wittmann, Hans Bolter, Hermann Bix, and others