3. Stay in Moscow
While the Kobelevs leave Moscow, Gerty and Slavkin remain at the house on Gagarinsky Lane. Read by Barbara Flynn.
While the Kobelevs leave Moscow, Gerty and Slavkin remain at the house on Gagarinsky Lane.
Early in 1914, 22-year-old Gerty Freely travels to Russia to work as a governess, little-knowing the huge upheavals in the world and in her own life that lie ahead.
In London, 1974, Gerty begins a memoir for her daughter Sophy, looking back at that extraordinary time of war, revolution and civil war.
Most of her memories are centred on a young inventor, Nikita Slavkin, who mysteriously disappeared in 1919 and was subsequently celebrated in Soviet culture as The Vanishing Futurist.
“No word has been heard from him since […] Yet the idea persists that one day he will reappear.”
Charlotte Hobson's novel abridged by Jeremy Osborne.
Read by Barbara Flynn.
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in September 2020.
Last on
Broadcasts
Wed 23 Sep 202012:04BBC Radio 4- Wed 23 Sep 202022:45BBC Radio 4
- Wed 18 Jun 202508:30BBC Radio 4 Extra
- Wed 18 Jun 202513:30BBC Radio 4 Extra
- Wed 18 Jun 202519:30BBC Radio 4 Extra
- Thu 19 Jun 202503:30BBC Radio 4 Extra
