Russia by Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace (first published 1877) was one of the most comprehensive and widely read accounts of Russian life and society produced by a Western observer in the 19th century. Drawing on years of travel and residence in Russia, Wallace examined the country’s villages, institutions, church, peasant commune, and political system with the eye of a careful journalist and the intelligence of a serious scholar.
An important historical document and still a remarkably readable portrait of a society on the cusp of transformation, this public-domain classic is freely available as an EPUB download.