A review by saralynnburnett
Scenes from a Bath House: And Other Stories of Communist Russia by Mikhail Zoščenko

4.0

I loved these tongue in cheek stories about life in the Soviet Union. They had me smiling at every page as each ridiculous (but totally Russian) plot unfolded. His sharp satire reminds me a lot of John Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and though I would recommend this book to just about anyone, I think it helps to have a soft spot for both Russia and Communism to fully appreciate the humor behind these tales. I found the novella at the end of this book (Before the Sun Rises) intriguing because it is autobiographic and ends with a cryptic 'to be continued' - which of course it never was because Zoshchenko was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers and declared to be a 'literary tramp'.