These fairytales were…interesting to say the least. It was nice reading them and getting to know what a portion of the metaphorical landscape of Russian fairytales and folklore looks like. Some of them were weird, as what happens with most folklore of different countries. But they were definitely unique. ( )

Finestkind. ( )

This book contains five Russian fairy tales and features a couple of quintessential characters: the Baby Yaga, living in her hut on hens' legs, and the firebird. While there are echoes to the collected tales by the brothers Grimm, I don't believe that these stories were modelled after them, as one reviewer remarked; I think that some of these tales represent archetypal stories that have their roots in the deep past, when they were shared around campfires and travelled vast distances, and then evolved into the recognisable tales we find today, albeit with local and regional variations.

Three of the stories ('Vasilisa the Beautiful', 'The Feather of Finist the Falcon' and 'The Frog-Tsarevna') offer a commendable variation to most fairy tales: they have as their main character a woman, whereas the man is very much on the sidelines and has to be rescued or assisted, if he appears at all. The latter two tales made a very deep impression on me when I was growing up, and I still remembered a couple of plot points more than thirty years later!

As some reviewers have already mentioned, the illustrations by Ivan Bilibin are stunning: intricate, highly detailed, atmospheric and very colourful, they enhance the stories no end and provide a flavour of Russian folklore and culture. ( )

These tales are very similar in nature to the Grimm Fairy Tales. Since they were modeled after the Grimm Fairy Tales, I guess this can be expected. Really entertaining if you're into dark stories. There is a stronger streak of feminism than the Grimm fairy tales with more autonomy and independence for women in stories such as The Death of Koschei the Deathless. ( )

This print-on-demand book from Amazon contains some of the most popular fairy tales from the Afanas'ev collection as well as the corresponding illustrations by Ivan Bilibin. It appears to be scanned from a previous edition but there's no information which one. The page numbers in the table of content do not match the actual pagination, and the spelling looks odd at times. The gorgeous pictures make up for it. ( )