Andre Van Loon

Fleeing Mother Russia

Her memoir of 1918, describing her arduous journey to the Black Sea in flight from the Bolsheviks, is both thrilling and darkly comic

issue 21 May 2016

‘Ah! Scrubbing the deck! My childhood dream! As a child I had once seen a sailor hosing the deck with a large hose while another sailor scrubbed away with a stiff, long-handled brush with bristles cut at an angle. I had thought at the time that nothing in the world could be jollier.

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