To die as a 58-year-old oligarch in one’s own time is insulting. To wake up as a 20-year-old White Guardsman in a frost-bitten railcar heading to Harbin—unexpectedly.
There’s not a kopeck in my pocket. My body barely moves after typhus, and outside the door of the cattle car—Chinese patrols, looters, and a cruel 1920.
My main asset is a loyal Cossack scout-commando with a “Mauser.” The boy is the heir of a wealthy family, and there’s a hundred hungry emigrants. My strategy is audacity and the experience of the past.
I’m not going to save the collapsing Empire. I’ll build my own.