While the characters in this novel are fictional, the wartime events are drawn from historical records. Readers interested to learn more about the Siege of Leningrad might wish to read Harrison E. Salisbury’s The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad; S. P. Varshavskii’s The Ordeal of the Hermitage; and Cynthia Simmons and Nina Perlina’s Writing the Siege of Leningrad: Women’s Diaries, Memoirs, and Documentary Prose. The State Hermitage Museum also has an expansive website (www.hermitagemuseum.org) that provides history, digital reproductions of the collection, and panoramic views of various rooms in the museum.