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1952 – A doctor living in Leningrad (St Petersburg) is asked to treat a patient – the son of one of the country’s most feared Stalinist officers. Life and death are two sides to the same coin
The Betrayal
What you need to know before your trail
Leningrad, 1952.
Andrei is a young hospital doctor living with Anna, a nursery school teacher. They are trying to build a life for themselves now they have come out of the post -siege, post war wreckage. They want to rebuild their lives and are tyring to hang on to every scrap of happiness they can find. However Stalin’s merciless Ministry for State security has eyes and ears everywhere. When asked to treat the boy of one of its officers, their lives are quite literally in their hands for if the boy lives or dies could have direct consequences on everything they know and love.
If the boy dies, then the consequences are unthinkable, but if he is treated, what will people say of Andrei, and who will suspect him of collusion in the country’s events?
Travel Guide
War torn Leningrad
The story of Anna and Andrei who appeared in ‘The Siege’ continues and although the war does not require them to almost starve and fight for survival, the enemy they could at least see is now invisible. Stalin’s Russia is about secrecy, doing what you are told and doing anything you have to do to survive.
From the moment that Andre is asked to look at a sick child, the son of Volkov a senior secret-police officer, the black clouds come and settle over the city –
“Andrei looks down at his hands. He can barely believe this conversation. The man’s son has a tumour in the bone of his leg. Volkov is an intelligent man He must surely,understand what that means. And yet here he is, reciting the contents of Andrei’s personal file to him, as if this were an… Don’t think of that”
There is no place to hide in Leningrad 1952. There are eyes and ears everywhere and even where they aren;t there, the fear of them is enough to create subservience. Friends betray you to save themselves – they have to, otherwise death is the next face they see. the city swallows up those who come to live here – and many have after the siege, post war…
Leningrad knows how to make the newcomers its own, just as it’s always know how to transform each newborn baby into a child of the city
Trust no one. for who really can you trust? Imagine a society where you had to live like this and inside a hospital, a place of safety and security there is now an atmosphere of suspicious and anxiety. For if this treatment goes ahead, bad things will result, if it goes well, bad things will result and if it goes badly, well that is not worth thinking about. The future of the Stalin movement is at stake.
This is based on research that the author did on the doctor’s plot of Stalinist Russia and the gulags of Siberia .
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