Each of the five generations of Maria Mikhailovna's family grew up in times of change and upheaval; each has its own story to tell. Maria Mikhailovna was a young woman during the Russian revolution and famines of the 1920's. Her daughter, Lia, was an army volunteer during the days of World War II and the Leningrad blockade. Her grandson's wife, Nina, was a Komsomolka, student, and finally doctor through the Khruschev and Brezhnev eras. Her great-grandson, Boris, watched the unraveling of the communist system and collapse of the Soviet Union as a young man. And her great-great-grandson, Vanya, is, at the age of six, poised at the edge of a new century, just as Maria Mikhailovna was nearly one hundred years ago.

The history of Russia is the history of its people. This, then, is the story of Russia in the 20th century, through the eyes of the people who lived it.