Russian Winter

I very much enjoyed Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay which is set in Stalinist Russia and the mid-2000s. Former Soviet ballerina Nina Revskaya defected in the early 1950s and now living in Boston decides to auction her extensive jewellery collection for charity. A lecturer of Russian origin, Grigori Solodin, has a mysterious connection with Revskaya. He has a piece of amber jewellery that appears to be from a set that Revskaya is auctioning. The story goes back and forth, within chapters, between the earlier time when Revskaya began her career and worked her way up in the Bolshoi Ballet, her love for her husband Victor and her friends Vera and Gersh. In the modern time she is a sad old woman thinking about her past and fears learning the truth about that past. The book is well-researched and brings the past to life, particularly the terror of that time and the wonderment of discovering that the West is not the evil empire the Soviets had been made to believe. 41/2/5