Russian History Text/Encyclopedia

Would anyone be able to recommend an excellent Russian history textbook or encyclopedia?

Currently I have the famed Solov'ev text. Although this book does an excellent job covering nobility and higher class history, the majority of every day people's lives seems to be absent from most chapters. (This may very well be due to lack of recorded history concerning such matters.)

I would enjoy reading about evolution of culture, migrations, folk lore and cross-cultural interactions concerning the every day lives of the peasant majority inhabiting the region extending eastward from the border of german occupied lands to the Ural mountains. The time period I am most interested in is from 1000 a.d. to 1700 a.d. (ie, before Peter the Great's infusion of European ideas and customs.)

The text could be in Russian or English, preferably the former.

Illustrations would be helpful but not necessary.

Thank you for any and all input.

Pazhaluy, mne nado budet zhdat' do konca sveta... dlya otveta.(Poet li ya?) Poetomu ya reshil sam poiskat' knigu po predmetu istorii, imenno enciklopediu. V konce koncov nashel ya klassnuyu enceklopediu po nazvaniem "Russian history from the "pagan" times to the present." Eta enciklopedia konechno na russkom. Ya bezuslovno coobshu kak poluchitsa i esli vam sleduet sebe kupit'. <a esli okazhetsa ploxoi, to obyazatel'no tebe nado kupit' u menya! :) >

Tvoi tavarisch' i pyannii bezplatnii kloun... Andrei

You should try to get books by Gymilev and Karamzin (история государства российского) (spelling's IMHO :) )
But I'm not sure there're ones in English :( Anyway try that in Google