"Reeds in the Wind" takes you along on the vertiginous journey of a mother with her two children whose lives were suddenly turned upside down by two forces of evil, threatening to exterminate millions of people with no relation and understanding of the dark minds behind this tragedy. From a somewhat uneventful life under the Soviet regime, the breadbasket of Ukraine became the overlapping target of both Stalin and Hitler and that is where and when it all begins to unravel. The City of Kharkov is where the author was born. Nikita Kusnezov describes his youth growing up under communism and how alarming events started to replace the daily routine, virtually exposing the reader to his hands-on experience as the situation keeps deteriorating. To follow the sometimes miraculous escapes throughout Eastern Europe, during twelve years of being constantly uprooted, makes for a gut wrenching reading. This odyssey of human endurance and survival takes place among the turmoil of World War II as the unfolding background is kept in sight by the author and referred to methodically. This autobiography is only one more testimony of the millions of victims who fell silent and to whom Timothy Snyder refers in his "Bloodlands". Cover Painting MARSH IN A FOREST, ca. 1665 by Jacob Van Ruysdael (1628-1682) Acquired by Catherine the Great between 1763-1774, for the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia.
About the Author: Nikita Kusnezov was a native of Ukraine by chance. His paternal grandfather was a railroad engineer. He had just finished his work on the Trans Siberian railroad and was on his way with his family to his next job. Stepping off the train at the Kharkov Central Station to purchase a newspaper, the headline "Czar Nicholas II has abdicated" meant that he and his family had reached the end of the line. Thus the new job would not be forthcoming and the family settled where the train stopped. Nikita's line claims descent from an aristocratic family of St.Petersburg and a relation as the great grandnephew of the illustrious Admiral Stepan O. Makarov, hero of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. World War II, as related in his autobiography, displaced him and after being helped by the son of the Admiral, Nikita was able to emigrate to the United States and resume his life and his studies. UC Berkeley, became his University of choice and he graduated with a PhD in Electrical Engineering which opened him the doors to work for the Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. in Palo Alto, California. With one goal in mind for 26 years he was, through his research, steadfast in his fight of communism. Nikita retired when the Berlin Wall fell as he felt vindicated that his personal war was over.