Russian at Heart: Sonechka’s Story

Russian at Heart is the true story of my mother, Sonechka. Orphaned and destitute at thirteen she survived the horrors of the Russian Civil War and several years living under the Bolshevik regime. Having fled from Moscow to China in 1924, Sonechka became stranded in civil war-torn Shanghai. I was born there during the Japanese occupation in 1942. Throughout her life Sonechka’s remarkable resourcefulness enabled her, and her family, to survive. Sonechka died in San Francisco in 1974 leaving me her memoir not