Russian emigré Marina Buriakov, 82, suffers from Alzheimer’s can’t remember or recognize her own children, but she has vivid memories of earlier life has a docent at the State Hermitage Museum before the siege of Leningrad. Charged with saving the millions of priceless treasures from being stolen by the invading Germans, she lives in the cellar with her family at night and works feverishly during the day. The workers leave the frames on the walls to symbolize the artworks eventual return.
An elderly docent tells her that hundreds of art works went missing overnight to be sold on the international market during the Stalin regime Marina begins creating a “Memory Place” in her mind of all of the pieces of art in the museum so that at least one person remembers what pieces where in the museum. While watching for incoming Nazi planes on the roof, she mentally walks through the miles and miles of hallways and rooms to remember every single piece. Towards the end of the war she begins providing tours of the State Hermitage describing in detail the artwork that used to hang in the empty frames.
The book includes many flash forwards to the wedding of her granddaughter and her families realization that Marina may need more than her husband to take care of her. Marina goes missing while staying on an unfamiliar island the day after the wedding. While you would like a missing person story would be the more interesting story line, it is not. In my opinion, the book would have been better served with the one story line of Marina’s struggles within the State Hermitage.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars.
On a personal note, I have always been facsinated by Russian music, culture and the museum mentioned in this book. I highly recommened viewing the film Russian Ark by Alexander Sokurov. Filmed in one take, it tells the story of a ghost from France drifting from room to room who encounters fictional and real people from Russian history. It includes 2000 actors, 33 rooms of the Hermitage, 3 live orchestras and 300 years of Russian history. A truly remarkable film.

The set design included artwork from the newest album, lazers and several globes that were light with color and projected videos. Ryan really enjoyed watching the video montages of the band on the 2 large screens above our heads.