Chapter 1: The Ghosts

Soviet baby boomers are born into a country ravaged by war. Given that parents are largely absent — either dead, traumatized, or working to make ends meet – children spend most of their time in the dvor, the urban courtyard. The dvor is Vladimir Putin’s world. 

Putin grows up as a small, scrawny kid in a poor neighborhood with few ways up. Enter judo and the KGB. 

The first year of the siege of Leningrad that began in September 1941 marked the opening stage of a 900-day-long struggle for survival that left over a million dead. The capture of the city came tantalizingly close late that year, but Hitler paused to avoid costly urban fighting. ...  Show more

The first year of the siege of Leningrad that began in September 1941 marked the opening stage of a 900-day-long struggle for survival that left over a million dead. The capture of the city came tantalizingly close late that year, but Hitler paused to avoid costly urban fighting. ...  Show more

History is replete with examples of leaders, nations, and empires who left a trail of blood behind them. But with the Bolshevik takeover of Russia after the First World War, something new crawled from the depths of the earth onto the surface of the world. Never before had a gover ...  Show more

On the Eastern Front of World War I, German and Russian soldiers were locked in a desperate stalemate against each other and one of the most brutal winters in a century. But as the conflict decimated their enemies, ravenous wolf packs began to stalk the battlefield, seeing the tr ...  Show more