Reddit mentions of Russia's Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange (Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies)

I see you found the recent Figes book. If you're interested in an introduction to pre-Soviet cultural history, that is probably the book for you.

Based on the other stuff you said below about wanting to be prepared for Russia, I would point out that it's very difficult to draw direct links between the Russia of the present and the Russia of the nineteenth century. THIS book is a personal favorite of mine. It's a bit dry, but it is the best effort I know that explores how an idea of what Russia is or should be was recovered/invented beginning in the 1960s in the wake of the largely successful Bolshevik attempt to destroy Russian society. I would also recommend THIS or THIS book by Alena Ledeneva, though it's not history per se.

EDIT: THIS book is very highly regarded. It traces the Petrograd cultural elite through the Revolution, and gets into their contributions to early post-Revolutionary society.