Simon Montefiore: One Night in Winter

Major characters are underlined ; historical characters are marked with an asterisk*

Constantin Romashkin, scriptwriter and poet, married to:

Sophia ‘Mouche’ Gideonovna Zeitlin, film star

Serafima Romashkina , 18, their only child

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

‘George’, Georgi Satinov , 18

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:

‘Dashka’, Dr Daria Dorova , Minister of Health, cardiologist

Their children:

Sergei Dorov, 20, army officer

‘Minka’, Marina Dorova , 18, schoolfriend of Serafima

Demian Dorov, ‘the Weasel’, 17, Organizer of Young Pioneers

‘Senka’, Semyon Dorov, ‘the Little Professor’, 10

‘Nikolasha’, Nikolai Blagov , 18

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

Andrei Kurbsky , 18, a newcomer to the school

Peter Kurbsky, his father, Enemy of the People, arrested in 1938, sentenced to twenty-five years ‘without right of correspondence’

Inessa Kurbskaya, his mother

Kapitolina Medvedeva , Director (headmistress) and history teacher

Dr Innokenty Rimm , Deputy Director, political science/Communist morals teacher

Benya Golden , Russian literature teacher

Tamara Satinova, English teacher (see Satinov family above)

Apostollon Shuba, physical education teacher

Agrippina Begbulatova, assistant teacher

Josef Stalin ,* Marshal, General Secretary (Gensec) of the Communist Party, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the Master, the Instantsiya

‘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

General Bogdan Kobylov,* ‘the Bull’, MGB

Colonel Vladimir Komarov,* investigator, SMERSH/MGB

Colonel Mikhail Likhachev,* investigator, SMERSH/MGB

Averell Harriman,* US Ambassador to Moscow

Captain Frank Belman, diplomat, deputy military attaché, interpreter

I wish to thank the following friends and sources whose stories have helped inspire this novel with the elixir of passion and the detail of authenticity: Hugh Lunghi, Gela Charkviani, Nestan Charkviani, General Stepan Mikoyan and his daughter Aschen Mikoyan, Sergo Mikoyan, Stanislas Redens, Galina Babkova, Rachel and Marc Polonsky; and Sophie Shulman.

First: Hugh Lunghi. Hugh and I became friends while writing my books on Stalin because he translated for Churchill at some of the Big Three meetings with Stalin. He kindly told me the entire story of his Russian love affair which inspired Serafima’s story. Without him the book could not have been written.

Gela Charkviani, son of Kandide Charkviani, Stalin’s First Secretary of Georgia 1938–51, shared his elegant memoirs of élite life, Memoirs of a Provincial Communist Prince . Sophie Shulman kindly let me read her fascinating memoirs , Life Journey of a Secular Humanist. Gela Charkviani and Sophie Shulman answered my questions about their schooldays in Stalin’s Russia. General Stepan Mikoyan, air force pilot, and Sergo Mikoyan, sons of Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan, were both arrested (Sergo was fourteen) in the real Children’s Case and both talked to me about their experience, as did Stanislas Redens, Stalin’s nephew, who was also arrested.

Thanks to the Polonskys who had me to stay in Molotov’s apartment in the Granovsky building.

I am hugely grateful to my brilliant, tireless and meticulous editor and publisher, Selina Walker, and to the irrepressibly superb Georgina Capel, the best agent in town. Thanks to my parents for editing this.

Above all, thanks to my wife Santa for the supreme gifts of serene love and best friendship; and for shrewd advice on this book; and to my adored children Lily and Sasha, who have inspired the children in both my Russian novels.

Just moments after the shots, as Serafima looks at the bodies of her schoolfriends, a feathery whiteness is already frosting their blasted flesh. It is like a coating of snow, but it’s midsummer and she realizes it’s pollen. Seeds of poplar are floating, bouncing and somersaulting through the air in random manoeuvres like an invasion of tiny alien spaceships. Muscovites call this ‘summer snow’. That humid evening, Serafima struggles to breathe, struggles to see.

Later, when she gives her testimony, she wishes she had seen less, knew less. ‘These aren’t just any dead children,’ slurs one of the half-drunk policemen in charge of the scene. When these policemen inspect the IDs of the victims and their friends, their eyes blink as they try to measure the danger – and then they pass on the case as fast as they can. So it’s not the police but the Organs, the secret police, who investigate: ‘Is it murder, suicide or conspiracy?’ they will ask.