As part of our celebration of “all things Russia” for Valentine’s Day, be sure to read our post in Rose’s Ridge, “From Russia With Love,” and try our recipes of Russian dishes from Around The Table. Also learn some interesting facts and view beautiful pictures here.

“What makes the 19th century Russian writers so distinctive” writes Francine Prose in New York Times’ ‘Bookends’ from November 25, 2014, “is the force, the directness, the honesty and accuracy with which they depicted the most essential aspects of human experience – childbirth, childhood, death, first love, marriage, happiness, loneliness, betrayal, poverty, wealth, war and peace…”

Born to a prominent family in the Russian nobility, Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was regarded as a “virtually untouchable genius” whose two great works, War and Peace (1865-1869) and Anna Karenina (1875-1877) “combine unprecedented depth of characterization and keenness of observation with a profound interest in the philosophical underpinnings of everyday life.”* Read more