House on the Embankment

Early in the spring of 1918, fledgling Soviet Russia hastily moved its capital to the southeast.

Petrograd may have been the cradle of the Revolution, but those newly vested in power did not like it there, what with hunger raging and strikes spreading in the megalopolis, threatening a serious counterrevolution.

Yet scarier still for the Bolsheviks, who had only just started to get comfortable in their Smolny offices, were the Germans. Their troops had marched almost to the gates of Petrograd. Indeed, the front line was just 150 kilometers from the Russian capital, ensuring that it was deluged with deserters, marauders and refugees.