In the late 1920s, 500 comfortable apartments were built in Moscow for the elite of the Soviet Union, all under one roof: the "House of Government." Nowhere else is the history of the USSR so intensely condensed: from the first Bolsheviks and their almost religious zeal to the terror of Stalin and into present-day Russia. Yuri Slezkine, a great storyteller and historian, intertwines the history of the house with the biographies of its residents into an epic of the 20th century. The impact of the Russian Revolution can only be understood by connecting the political struggles to the personal fates. This magnum opus is celebrated internationally as a masterpiece.