From the series "dtv bilingual," written by Natalija Nossowa, translated by Gisela and Michael Wachinger, with illustrations by Frieda Wiegand. This paperback contains 33 short reading pieces about Russia in simple Russian with corresponding German translations. The reader learns some new things about familiar topics: steam baths and tea, bliny and caviar, Arbat and the Golden Ring, Ivan, Peter, and Catherine, matryoshkas and icons, Decembrists and Tolstoyans, and some things of which they had little or no prior knowledge: about Mr. Grag-Nowgorod, Kievan Rus, Princess Olga, the Tsar's crown, the German suburb of Moscow, the French Queen Anna Jaroslawna, the Bratsk Reservoir, and Bulgakov's gravestone. The book is not a systematic study of the country and does not aim to come to terms with the past; rather, it presents a few fragments from a vast tapestry.