For those looking for more Bulgakov, or who found M+M too opaque but are still curious, The White Guard is a hell of a book. Sharp, beautifully told story about a monarchist family in Kiev in the early days of the revolution.
Heart of a Dog is also very accessible relative to M+M, and considerably more fun. It also features Bulgakov in at what seems to be peak "Honey Badger" mode - you read it, then check the date in disbelief... how he figured he'd get away with writing a book like that in 1925 beggars belief.
Also, The Fatal Eggs, and Journal of a Young Country Doctor are fascinating reads for different reasons - the former is a scathing allegorical attack on the Soviet Union (the eggs being the ideals of communism, the things which hatch from them being the praxis), and the latter is a riveting insight into the pillories of daily life in rural soviet Russia.
Along with Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn also offers deep insight into the soviet mindset, between his better known works (Gulag Archipelago, Cancer Ward, Ivan Denisovich) and his lesser known works (Incident at Krechetovka Station, Matryona's House).
One thing that both excelled at was getting their work published, not purely through samizdat, by making their allegorical allusions clear to those who knew what they were looking for but utterly opaque to the poorly educated soviet censors.
The 20th were the times of NEP [1] (New Economic Policy) where a lot of restrictions were relaxed to boost the economy and the morale after the civil war years. That also made a lot of cultural and public figures to accept new regime more, since it looked as if things kinda getting more normal, maybe not exactly the same as before but Bolsheviks are getting more and more reasonable and wartime excesses are winding down. Little did they now...
After Lenin's death and the ascension of Stalin in late 1920th, though, the program was dismantled and the restrictions returned in both economics and public life. And then amplified to the peak of Great Terror in the 1930th.
There is also a novel about a doctor in rural Russia, as well as a novel about Moliere's life: both of those are not opaque at all, and need next to no Russian context to read them.
"A Young Doctor's Notebook" was also turned into a TV miniseries a few years ago, with Daniel Radcliffe as the young doctor and Jon Hamm as his older self. The series is a bit zany at times, but captures the Russianness and humour of the book very well.
