The history of Russia has seesawed through the centuries between Europe and Asia. In this dichotomy, St Petersburg looked west and Moscow looked east. Power moved between the two cities; the Tsars were crowned in Moscow yet ruled from St Petersburg. But at the turn of the 20th century, just before Tsarist Russia came tumbling down, both cities experienced a sudden, brilliant flowering of the visual, literary and performing arts. Known in Russia as the Silver Age, this cultural renaissance is captured in all its dazzling originality from the unprecedented synthesis of the arts in the productions of Diaghilevs Ballets Russes to Stanislavskys groundbreaking stagings of Chekov, to Malevichs revolutionary Black Square in this impeccably written, sumptuously illustrated volume.