If your children were forced to testify against you, what terrible secrets would they reveal?Moscow 1945. As Stalin and his courtiers celebrate victory over Hitler, shots ring out. On a nearby bridge, a teenage boy and girl lie dead.But this is no ordinary tragedy and these are no ordinary teenagers, but the children of Russia's most important leaders who attend the most exclusive school in Moscow.Is it murder? A suicide pact? Or a conspiracy against the state?Directed by Stalin himself, an investigation begins as children are arrested and forced to testify against their friends – and their parents. This terrifying witch-hunt soon unveils illicit love affairs and family secrets in a world where the smallest mistakes can be punished with death.
Not a soul knew about it and … probably no one would ever know. He was leading a double life: one was undisguised, plain for all to see and known to everyone who needed to know, full of conventional truths and conventional deception, identical to the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another which went on in secret. And by some strange, possibly fortuitous chain of circumstances, everything that was important, interesting and necessary for him, where he behaved sincerely and did not deceive himself and which was the very essence of his life – that was conducted in complete secrecy.
Major characters are
Constantin Romashkin, scriptwriter and poet, married to:
Sophia ‘Mouche’ Gideonovna Zeitlin, film star
Sashenka Zeitlin, Sophia’s cousin, arrested 1939, fate unknown
Hercules (Erakle) Satinov, Politburo member, Central Committee Secretary, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, married to:
‘Tamriko’, Tamara Satinova, English teacher at School 801
Mariko Satinova, 6, their daughter
Satinov’s sons by an earlier marriage in Georgia:
‘Vanya’, Ivan Satinov, pilot, killed 1943
David Satinov, 23, pilot
Marlen Satinov, 17, School Komsomol Organizer
Colonel Losha Babanava, Comrade Satinov’s chief bodyguard
Valerian Chubin, Comrade Satinov’s aide
Genrikh Dorov, Chairman, Central Control Commission, and Minister of State Control, married to:
Their children:
Sergei Dorov, 20, army officer
Demian Dorov, ‘the Weasel’, 17, Organizer of Young Pioneers
‘Senka’, Semyon Dorov, ‘the Little Professor’, 10
Ambassador Vadim Blagov, his father, diplomat
Ludmilla Blagova, his mother
Rosa Shako, 18, schoolfriend of Serafima
Marshal Boris Shako, her father, Soviet Air Force Commander
Elena Shako, her mother
Vladimir Titorenko, 17
Ivan Titorenko, his father, Minister of Aircraft Production
Irina Titorenka, his mother
Peter Kurbsky, his father, Enemy of the People, arrested in 1938, sentenced to twenty-five years ‘without right of correspondence’
Inessa Kurbskaya, his mother
Tamara Satinova, English teacher (see Satinov family above)
Apostollon Shuba, physical education teacher
Agrippina Begbulatova, assistant teacher
‘Vaska’, Vasily Josefovich Stalin,* 24, his son, air force officer, ‘Crown Prince’
Svetlana Stalina,* 19, his daughter, student
Vyacheslav Molotov,* Foreign Minister, Politburo member
Lavrenti Beria,* secret policeman, Minister of Internal Affairs (NKVD/MVD) 1938–45, Deputy Chairman of Council of Ministers, Politburo member
Georgi Malenkov,* Politburo member
Andrei Vyshinsky,* Deputy Foreign Minister
‘Sasha’, Alexander Poskrebyshev,* Stalin’s chef-de-cabinet
Vsevolod Merkulov,* Minister of State Security (MGB)
Victor Abakumov,* Chief of Military Counter-intelligence (SMERSH: Death to Spies), then Minister of State Security (MGB)
Marshal Georgi Zhukov,* Deputy Supreme Commander
Marshal Ivan Konev*
Marshal Constantin Rokossovsky*
Colonel Pavel Mogilchuk, investigator, Serious Cases Section MGB
