From the Yaroslavsky Station: Russia Perceived

This is a beautifully written, truly wonderful book. Ms. Pond took a train trip on the Trans-Siberian railroad, and wrote fascinating and erudite vignettes based loosely on each of her stops, from Moscow to the far East.I've read widely about Communism. But I must say that, with the exception of Solzhenitsyn's works and Edmund Wilson's To the Finland Station, I have never read any book that contributed as much to my understanding of this morally bankrupt, dying empire.