Orlando Figes Quote

I'll pretend, I tell myself. Pretending is safer than believing.

It's different now, like pushing the stop lever on my camera until nothing except the war can squeeze through the lens.

My sisters and I sit together on a pair of suitcases. If we've forgotten anything, it's already too late -- our rooms have all been sealed and photographed. Anyway, Tatiana would say it's bad luck to...

I wish I wasn't an imperial highness or an ex-grand duchess. I'm sick of people doing things to me because of what I am. Girl-in-white-dress. Short-one-with-fringe. Daughter-of-the-tsar. Child-of-the-...

Lenin was always prone to overestimate the physical danger to himself: in this respect he was something of a coward.

The feminine section of the proletarian army is of particularly great significance... the success of a revolution depends on the extent to which women take part in it.

We should be used to it, Tatiana reasons. There have always been lines separating us from the rest of the world, whether they were satin ribbons or iron rails.

Maria cries unashamedly on my shoulder while I whisper and pet her cheek, but Anastasia grips my other hand and stares fiercely back at our Alexander Palace with her wet blue eyes until it is no more...

Lenin's Personal life was extraordinarily dull. He dressed and lived like a middle-aged provincial clerk, with precisely fixed hours for meals, sleep, work and leisure. He liked everything to be neat...

Everybody cursed the Bolsheviks but nobody was prepared to do anything about them.