Read "A Gentleman in Moscow" by Amor Towles online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
On Saturday, the twenty-first of June 1946, as the sun rose high over the Kremlin, a lone figure climbed slowly up the steps from the Moskva River embankment, continued past St. Basil's Cathedral, and made his way onto Red Square.
Dressed in a ragged winter coat, he swung his right leg in a small semicircle as he walked. At another time, the combination of the ragged coat and hobbled leg might have made the man stand out on such a bright summer day. But in 1946, there were men limping about in borrowed clothes in every quarter of the capital. For that matter, they were limping about in every city of Europe.