The Rooster House

<p><b>Radio 4 Book of the Week</b><br><br><b>''A beautiful insight into a nation beyond war headlines'' </b><i>Independent</i><br><br><b>''A captivating family memoir spanning four generations... Belim blends the personal and the historical to tell a moving, century-long tale of fear, hardship and resilience'' </b><i>The i</i><br><br><b>''Wild swans for Ukraine... an enthralling, multilayered family story, told across four generations. Rich and magnificent. A marvel'' </b><i>Bookseller</i><br><br>In 2014, while the Russian state was annexing Crimea, Victoria Belim came across her great-grandfather''s diary, one page scored deep with the single line: ''Brother Nikodim, vanished in the 1930s fighting for a free Ukraine.'' She had never heard of this uncle and no one - especially her grandmother - seemed willing to tell her about him. <br><br>Victoria became obsessed with recovering his story. In the end, her winding search took her back to the place she had always known it would - to the Rooster House, an elegant mansion in the Ukrainian city of Poltava with two voluptuous red roosters flanking the door, and dark truths contained in its basement.</p>