When Rachel Polonsky went to live in Moscow, she found an apartment block in Romanov Street, once a residence of the Soviet elite. One of those ghostly neighbours was Stalin`s henchman Vyacheslav Molotov. In his former apartment, Rachel Polonsky discovered his library & an old magic lantern. Molotov
- ruthless apparatchik, participant in the collectivizations & the Great Purge
- was also an ardent bibliophile. Molotov`s library & his magic lantern became the prisms through which Rachel Polonsky renewed her vision of Russia. She visited cities & landscapes associated with the books in the library
- Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Akhmatova & many less well-known figures. Some were sent to the Gulag by the man who collected their books.