Modern Russian books to read at every level (A1–C2)

Around one hundred short texts with exercises for reading, grammar review and speaking.

Young investigators follow clues and attempt to solve a mystery in this instalment of the «Чёрный котёнок» series.

Two schoolchildren from different decades find themselves living in each other’s time. At school and at home, they encounter habits and technology unfamiliar to them.

A young woman leaves Armenia and tries to make a life in Moscow. Work, friends and the unfamiliar routines of the capital become part of her everyday story.

Viktor Sluzhkin, a man struggling to find his place in life, begins teaching geography at a school in Perm. His relationships with students, colleagues and family become increasingly complicated.

During a summer at a Soviet pioneer camp, children and counsellors begin to notice increasingly strange events. The ordinary camp routine gradually turns into a supernatural mystery.

Investigator Anastasia Kamenskaya identifies a professional killer, but proving his guilt is far more difficult. She has to deal with a dangerous man while searching for evidence that will stand up to scrutiny.

Anastasia Kamenskaya becomes involved in another investigation where an apparently straightforward situation hides a more complicated set of motives.

Innokenty Platonov wakes in a hospital without understanding how he arrived there. As he begins to record his memories, the story moves between different periods of Russian history.

A young historian researches a mysterious White Army general and tries to reconstruct his life from scattered evidence. His research gradually becomes entangled with his own story.

A successful guitarist faces changes in his life that make him look back at his family and childhood. Scenes from different periods gradually build his story.

Anastasia Kamenskaya becomes entangled in the activities of a dangerous criminal group. To uncover what is happening, she must negotiate with people whose motives she cannot trust.

A young man dreams of becoming a cosmonaut and enters a training system with increasingly disturbing rules. The story turns the imagery of Soviet space exploration into dark satire.

The novel traces the lives of a mother and daughter in Tashkent through family conflicts, art and memories of the city. Their experiences unfold across different years.

Sonechka, a quiet young woman who loves reading, marries an older artist and builds a family life around him and their daughter. Over time, the relationships within the family change.

Anton Gorodetsky works for the Night Watch, an organisation that supervises the actions of supernatural beings in modern Moscow. As he becomes involved in a series of unusual events, he learns more about the uneasy balance between the forces of Light and Darkness.

After a devastating war, survivors shelter in the Moscow metro, where stations have become separate communities. A young man named Artyom sets out on a dangerous journey through the tunnels in search of help.

In medieval Russia, a gifted healer travels through different places and stages of life while trying to make sense of loss and responsibility. His journey brings together ordinary encounters and questions of faith.

A young man enters the advertising business during Russia’s turbulent 1990s. His work in television commercials draws him into an increasingly strange world.

The narrator moves between a world associated with the Russian Civil War and a psychiatric hospital in the 1990s. The relation between these realities remains uncertain.

A woman with unusual abilities becomes the centre of a story told through different people and periods of her life. The reader gradually reconstructs her history.

In eighteenth-century Siberia, several groups of characters face political, religious and personal conflicts during the reign of Peter the Great. Their stories intersect across the region.

Pavel Kukotsky, a gifted doctor, works in Soviet Russia as political events and family conflicts reshape the lives of those around him. The novel follows several characters across generations.