When twenty-two-year-old Gerty Freely travels to Russia to work as a governess in early 1914, she has no idea of the vast political upheavals ahead. In 1917, revolution sweeps away the Moscow Gerty knew. The middle classes are fleeing the country, but she stays, throwing herself into an experiment in communal living led by Slavkin.

Paperback edition of the debut novel from the author of "Black Earth City". Beginning in 1914 as young Englishwoman travels to Russia to work as a governess, it explores the way the country and the world was changed by the Russian Revolution of 1917.