Russian Houses

From the rustic simplicity of wooden cottages to the gaudy glitter of imperial palaces and estates, this intriguingly illustrated survey of Russian houses filters social history through architecture. Timber cathedrals, manor houses (all nationalized after the 1917 revolution), Peter the Great's wartime cabin by the White Sea, eclectic villas of the 19th-century bourgeoisie and fisherfolks's clustered dwellings evoke a panorama of Russian life. The homes of famous people shown here duly reflect their personalities. Words and photos invite us inside Lenin's monastic three-room apartment, the cozy corner flat of Dostoyevski's last years, painter Ilya Repi's hexagonal studio with skylights illuminating the interior, and dwellings of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gorky, Pasternak, Stanislavsky, Chekhov and Tchaikovsky. Gaynor and husband-photographer Haavisto are coauthors of Scandinavia: Living Design ; Goldstein is an associate professor of Russian at Williams College. (Nov.)