The Bronze Horseman: A Review

I just wanted to share a little bit about what I've been reading, doing, thinking about lately...

This book is TOTALLY awesome.  I thought that I loved Tully by the same author, Paullina Simons, but this book almost blows Tully out of the park.

This is a historical novel set in WWII Leningrade during the 900-day seige.  Before reading this book, I had never taken much of an interest in Russian history, but, boy am I glad I did!  It's just as fantastic and intriguing as England's history which I have been completely OBSESSED with and have almost read and seen everything I can get my hands on about.

Leningrad (now known as St. Petersburg) is the great former capital of Russia built by Peter the Great.  During WWII, Tatiana (16 years old when the book starts) lives in a communal apartment with her family in Soviet Leningrad under Stalin's rule.  It is dark, dank, and raw.  Russia, even to this day, has always been behind the times when it comes to Westernization and industrialization and social reform...  much slower than the rest of the European nations.  They have just pretty much been backwards...  Anyway, Alexander is an officer in the Red Army.  He came to Russia as a small boy from America with his Communist parents who thought that they were bringing their family into a country and government that would be the best in the world.  Of course, we all know about Soviet Russia, and they were sadly mistaken.  Even though they were Communists, the Russians just don't trust anyone, and the secret police are everywhere and suspicious of everyone being American and/or German spies.  Tatiana and Alexander fall in love....

But, the main part of the story is the HISTORY!  It is so filled with Russian facts and detailed information, that it is so hard to put down!  Paullina Simons makes you feel like you are walking through the communal apartments...  She makes you feel like you are walking down Novesky Prospekt and gazing at the Winter Palace or the Neva River or the Hermitage Museum.

Millions of people were in the city of Leningrad during the 900-day seige.  The Germans had the city completely blockaded.  No one could get in and no one could get out...  this included food!  Half or more of the millions of people in Leningrad died of starvation during that 900-day seige.  They lived in horrible, disgusting, nightmarish conditions.  While families died.  No one worked.  No one ate.  No one did anything but wait until the siege was over and scrounge for food.  It is said that after the siege was over, not ONE cat, dog, or domestic pet was left in the entire city because they had been eaten.  There weren't enough cemeteries to bury the starved dead.  People lived on 125 grams of bread a day which was made primarily out of cardboard, ash, or some other unedible material...  125 grams!!!  Do you know how much bread that is???  It's the size of a deck of cards!!!  That's it.  No water.  No vegetables.  No butter.  No sugar.  No flour.  No nothing.  A deck of card-sized piece of bread for 900+ days...

It blows my mind.

What else blows my mind is the character of the Russian people.  They have been through much more than people in the Western world could even concieve of.  They have been suppressed, murdered, and kept hostage by their own government for centuries.  They have been through two world wars.  They have been through revolutions.  Civil war.  They have had Russian men die on Russian soil longer than before the United States of America was ever conceived of...

I want to go there.  I want to meet these people.  I want to see this place that is so out of MY ordinary way of thinking or being brought up.  I want to not take what I have for granted and learn from these Russian people what it's like to endure hardship, but keep on keeping on.  I want to learn the language (as best as I can) and experience these things that I've read about for myself!

As the story in the novel unfolds, Tatiana lives through the siege while Alexander fights the Germans and holds them back from entering the city of Leningrad.  She finally gets out of the city over the Road of Life (ice that had built up over a river, and the soldiers would drive them across under German fire)...

I can't really tell anymore about the book because it will just completely ruin for you if you read it, but I would highly recommend this book if you are into great love affairs (i.e. scarlett and rhett, romeo and juliet, etc...).  Also, read it if you are at all interested in learning more about Russia.  It's a great way to get inundated with life during WWII for them and just might strike an interest to study more, like I have.  :)

There is a sequal to the book...

called Tatiana & Alexander, which I am reading right now, and still, a third part to the trilogy called The Summer Garden.  The second book was just as good as the first book and even more suspenseful.  I have just now started reading the third book in the trilogy.  But, I still can't get the first book out of my head.  I've read it twice (blushing).  :)

So, sorry for the short history lesson.  I just like to talk about the things I'm interested in.  Ask any one of the people I'm close to (Sissy, Hubby, Mom, Dad...).  They will all tell you that when I read something, I take it personally and make it my mission to find out as much as I possibly can about that subject and completely immerse myself in it.  :)

So, I'm off to find a great program to teach me Russian and to convince my husband that a trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg in the future would be a great travel experience for us.  ;)

See ya!