Vladimir Gelman takes the opening words of his foreword from Charles Dickens “A Tale of Two Cities”—“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . .it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us”—and he is surely right. I had not realized how apt Dicken's words are to the changes that transformed Moscow from the Soviet capital of the late 80s to the new international city of the late 90s. It was an extraordinary time.

In the late 80s I was met at the airport by a young man, Yakov Sverdlov's grandson, working as a chauffeur, driving the old Volga that belonged to his mother, Nikolai Podvoiskii's daughter. In the early 90s there were still few cars on the streets. By the mid-90s, I had bought two Renaults, one Citroen, and one Volvo station wagon for the Ford Foundation staff working out of our office on Tverskaya. By the late 90s the pavements were crowded with American, Japanese, and European cars, and traffic was down to a crawl in the center of the city. Shops, clothes, restaurants—everything was changing fast; perhaps only the metro remained the same, as grand as it always had been.

Robert Stephenson lived and worked in Moscow between 1992–1997. His photographic account of life in the city, and the changing landscape of the city, focuses on the early 90s. He must have spent time walking the streets in the early morning, when few people were about, photographing streets and buildings. Most of the photographs are from these years, few from post-1995. He was not so interested in the markets, the railway stations, the metro, or buses—or indeed in political activity on the streets (although there is one chapter—Reform and Resistance—on this)—but this does not matter.

His is an absorbing pictorial account of the Moscow—the streets and Soviet architecture—that was disappearing. He provides short commentaries, grouping the photographs by theme. He includes the toppled statues in the parks, some of the classic Soviet sites or buildings that were subsequently torn down, the occasional outside of a “new” restaurant, still looking old-fashioned. His final pages contrast a photograph of the Ring Road taken in 1992 with one of 2012, where we see the advertisements and, in the distance, the outlines of the new skyscrapers of the Moscow City business center. But one is left feeling that a title such as “The Moscow that is leaving us. . .” would be more appropriate than “We are building capitalism!”

Anyone who spent time in Moscow during the early 90s will find it brings back memories. The photographs are fine, and the commentary short and to the point. I find myself asking—will it appeal to younger readers? Would I give it to students? The answer is yes; those who are doing a course on the economics or the politics of the transition period from 1985–1995; both those who have never been to Moscow or only paid a visit to the Moscow of today, will get a sense of the drama of the changing city. I suspect also, for those of older generations—both those who lived in Moscow during these years, and those who came on visits—it will awake memories and prompt others. Has anyone, I find myself thinking, published a photographic account of the changing interior of the Moscow apartment during these years? That would be interesting too.