A traveller's companion to Moscow - Laurence Kelly

Inhabited since Neolithic times but not founded until 1147, Moscow was for much of its early history in thrall to other nations - to the Khans, the Tartars and the Poles. The city was devastated by fire time and again, but each time, miraculously, made more splendid.

Through the voices of visitors and residents, this evocative and informative anthology includes: Peter the Great's bloody reprisals after the revolt of the streltsy in 1698; Napoleon's ignominious retreat from the burning city in 1812; the flowering of literary greatness in the 19th century and of the Moscow Arts Theatre in the 20th - and much more.