Local Author
1917 – Russia is at war against the Central Powers, the Tsar has abdicated, and Russia is being ‘governed’ by a shaky coalition of political interests.
In the cities starving people are queuing for food. There are strikes and protests, and soldiers are starting to mutiny and desert.
Pavel Sukhov is a prosperous merchant in Barnaul, a town in southern Siberia. He and his wife Maria, their three daughters and a young son, try to distance themselves from the political unrest gripping the nation.
But now Barnaul is about to install its first Soviet committee. Soon after, the town is engulfed in a catastrophic fire.
In Petrograd (St Petersburg), the Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace, and inexorably, Russia slides into a devastating civil war. The Sukhovs’ world will be overturned. They will be forced to fight for their very survival.
Note from the author: More than ten years ago in Thailand Arlette Cykman, the last remaining member of the Sukhov family, approached me with a remarkable account of the family’s struggle for survival during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the horrendous four-year civil war that followed. Her request was simple – to write her family’s story before she died. This is her family's story.
Published 2023