The testimony of a woman who, thanks to her husband's career, rose to the very top of Stalin's social elite.
Agnesa Mironova's memoirs, recorded by historian Mira Yakovenko from her own account, open the door to the rooms and salons of Stalin's executioners, the highest-ranking officers of the Soviet secret police during the purges of the 1930s and 1940s.
The book presents the extraordinary testimony of the wife of an ambitious NKVD officer, Sergei Mironov, who rose to the top of Stalin's social elite thanks to her husband's rapid career and, after his execution, went through prison and the Gulag herself. Agnessa talks honestly about her life full of sharp breaks, without regretting anything. She recalls the happy days of her youth, the luxurious life, the beautiful clothes and the ostentatious doing nothing she indulged in at a time when millions were starving to death.
The story of this charming and repulsive narrator resembles a novel. It brings to life the everyday life, human characters and mythology of a period that became the most terrible in modern Russian history.
