In this dynamic new history, Rodric Braithwaite—Russia expert and former ambassador to Moscow—unpicks fact from fiction to discover what lies at the root of the Russian story. Like the rest of us, the Russians constantly rewrite their history. They, too, omit episodes of national disgrace in favor of patriotic anecdotes, sometimes more rooted in myth than reality. Russia is not an enigma, but its past is violent, tragic, sometimes glorious, and always complicated.