Anya Petrovova Whitson aka Veronika “Vera” Petronova Marchenko Whitson

Anya is the heroine of this novel and the narrator of parts of it. She is the wife of Sasha and later the wife of Evan. She is the mother of Anastasia “Stacey,” Leo, Meredith, and Nina. She is a Russian woman who lived through the great purges in Leningrad during the Communist period of the Soviet Union. She also lived through the German Siege on Leningrad. Her father, a poet, was imprisoned and later killed during the purges. During the war, she joined the women who dug trenches and built fortifications for the Russian soldiers to protect Leningrad. She watched her sister get hit and killed by a bomb. Her grandmother was killed when bombs were dropped on food storage warehouses where she worked. Soon after Vera returned from digging the trenches, her mother died of malnutrition. Vera’s...