Elizaveta had been born on Vasilyevsky Island in Saint Petersburg. Her parents were both journalists, critical of the Cold War and the oppressive authoritarian regime in power at the time. Consequently, the KGB kept them under constant watch. Elizaveta remembered a small Russian-made Lada would follow their car around the city, and a man in a dark suit would always seem to be wherever they went, keeping tabs on them. Her father told her their phones were tapped, their apartment bugged, their mail opened. He also believed their government-provided housekeeper filed frequent reports on them. Then one day when Elizaveta was ten years old she came home from grade school to find the man in the dark suit waiting for her. He told her that her parents had been taken away and she would not see them again, and she never did. The next day she was installed in a state-sponsored orphanage that was like a mini gulag for children. Many infants had fetal alcohol disorders, and it wasn’t uncommon to see them sitting by themselves, staring blankly at nothing, or knocking their heads against the walls. The older children such as herself were frequently mistreated, abused, even “rented out” to local farmers to work on their farms. Needless to say, many of Elizaveta’s Dickensian housemates became psychologically scarred. One girl she got to know well picked up the unhealthy habit of rocking herself to sleep each night, while another rubbed the same part of her head so frequently she went bald there over time.

Elizaveta left the orphanage at the age of fifteen, in accordance with Soviet guidelines. She moved into a room in a state-subsidized Kommunalka, or communal apartment, in which none of the floors, walls, and pipes seemed to line up right. She shared the kitchen, two toilet closets, and a single bath with six other families. Although the building was warm during winter, it was not uncommon for the heat, or hot water, to shut off without warning—which had happened to her on several minus-thirty-degree days, and which was why she kept a giant jug of water handy so she could flush the toilet or wash dishes if needed.

The Soviet Union collapsed when Elizaveta was eighteen. Retail stores were routinely empty, and you had to wait in long queues for food supplies. You never threw out a vodka bottle because you could get small change for it at a recycling point. People with PhDs drove taxis, while neighbors banded together to chase off looters.