The Last Russian Doll
BY Kristen Loesch
In The Last Russian Doll, Tonya meets Valentin and invites him to a bakery, a move that was tone-deaf since the working class could no longer afford bread due to high inflation. Tonya intends to order cream cakes for her and Valentin, but she finds that the treats are too expensive even for her oligarch pocketbook. She settles for buying her and Valentin a slice of bread. Indulge where Tonya could not by making this Russian-inspired Prague Cake, courtesy of Let the Baking Begin.
A well-made doll can be a breathtaking work of art. When I was younger, my mother bought me a beautiful porcelain doll when we are on vacation in Korea. I still remember her silky black hair and beautiful almond eyes.
However, the same qualities that make a doll stunningly gorgeous can also make it unsettling. My grandmother owned a porcelain doll with bright green eyes, which she kept in her guest room. Whenever we were staying in that room, my husband and I had to turn the doll around. It was creepy in a soul-penetrating sort of way.
What makes one doll stunning and another unsettling? Why do some dolls seem to look into our souls? The uncomfortable presence of dolls forms the basis of Kristen Loesch’s The Last Russian Doll, a historical fiction that ties the Russian Revolution to the mysterious past of Rosie’s alcoholic mother and the deaths of her father and sister.
The book opens with a fairy tale. A girl is inseparable from a doll that has been molded to look just like her. One day, soldiers come to take away the girl’s mother. Her siblings try to stop them, but they are shot. The soldiers eventually notice the girl and her doll, but the soldiers think they are both dolls. After they take her mother away, the girl steps over all the blood, forgetting to wash it from her hands. She travels with her doll and becomes one with it until she herself cannot determine whether she is real or whether she is also a doll.
The real story begins with Rosie in 1991. She has gone to hear historian Alexey Ivanov speak about his memoir, The Last Bolshevik. He is reading a passage about his time on Stalin’s White Sea Canal. After his speech, she asks to interview to be his graduate assistant, and he gives her the job. She will be traveling to Russia with him, where she hopes to find out more about her early life in Russia before she and her mother had to flee from her father and sister’s murderer.
Later, Rosie goes home to her alcoholic mother, who reveals that she knows Rosie is going to Moscow. She gives her a warning that “No one will ever find the dolls,” and Rosie thinks she is talking about the multitudes of porcelain dolls in her mother’s living room. The next morning, Rosie finds one of the dolls scalped with an ornate brass key inside. Her mother tells her that she will help her find “that man” in case Rosie wants to find out more about her past. She says that the key is a drawer in the “stenka,” “Ludmila is still there,” and Rosie can “make a choice.” Rosie has no idea what she means.
The story then jumps to Petrograd (St. Petersburg) in 1917. The 1917 storyline introduces us to Valentin, a Bolshevik and famous revolutionary orator. He was adopted by the famous writer, Parvel. One day, his eyes fall on Antonia (Tonya), who is married to a rich factory owner named Dmitry. Tonya and Valentin fall in love. With the revolutionary takeover imminent, Tonya agrees to run away with Valentin. The day she is supposed to meet him, she gets a visit from Countess Natalya Burtsinova. Natalya grew up with Dmitry and loves him deeply, and she knows about the affair.
Tonya has another secret, though—she’s pregnant. Right before she leaves to meet Valentin, she faints. Dmitry calls a doctor, who tells him that she is pregnant. Dmitry knows the baby isn’t his. When Dmitry leaves the room, he locks Tonya inside.
Meanwhile, in the present day, Rosie finds a map her mother had drawn inside the skull of a doll. She tries to find Otrada, the house that was listed on the map. While Rosie is asking for directions to the house, she suddenly tastes charcoal. She finds out that the house had once caught fire a long time ago. Rosie has had these taste visions before, but only to places she’s been. This is the first time she’s had one without visiting the location first.
We later find out that Otrada was Tonya’s childhood home. Tonya drew the map for Natalya so that she could find her one day. Tonya plans her escape and works throughout the book to reunite with Valentin. With the Revolution taking place all around them, both Tonya and Valentin must continually choose between their beliefs and their desire to be together. Their decisions will not only affect their family and friends but will also have an impact on Rosie in the future. Their fates will eventually converge, with a series of dolls guiding them along the way.
The Last Russian Doll weaved together folklore, romance, and revolution into an astounding tale of intergenerational survival. Loesch does an amazing job intertwining Rosie’s life with Tonya and Valentin’s story to show the impact that the Russian Revolution still has on modern-day Russia. I was completely engulfed in the story. If you’re looking for a book that will make you laugh, cry, cringe, and long for a happy ending, then The Last Russian Doll is a perfect pick.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
My Rating System Explained 5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: This was an amazing book, and I can't stop thinking about it. It impacted me emotionally or changed my perspective. My thoughts keep flickering back to it at random times throughout the day. I will absolutely recommend it to my friends or to one of my book clubs. 4 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: This was a really good book. Parts of it stuck with me, and I might mention it in a conversation. There is a high likelihood that I will recommend it to my friends or to one of my book clubs. 3 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️: I liked this book. It allowed me to escape from reality for a while. While I might tell somebody about it if I think it will interest them, I will probably not suggest it to one of my book clubs. 2 Stars ⭐️⭐️: There's something about this book that I didn't like. I wasn't willing to go all the way down to a one-star rating, but I'm definitely not digging it. I may recognize that this book is not for me, but it might be for other people. I will not recommend it to my friends or one of my book clubs. 1 Star ⭐️: My rarest rating. I really didn't like this book. Something in the story line upset me, and I probably "hate-read" the majority of the book. Not only will I not recommend it, but I will actively tell people that I did not like it.
Baking Through Book Club 