Epic in scope, intimate in detail, heartbreaking in its human drama, this is the first book to recount the history of the nobility caught up the maelstrom of the Bolshevik Revolution & the creation of Stalin`s Russia. It is a book filled with chilling tales of looted palaces, burning estates, of desperate flights from marauding thugs & Red Army soldiers, of imprisonment, exile, & execution. It is the story of how a centuries`-old elite famous for its glittering wealth, its service to the Tsar & Empire, was dispossessed & destroyed along with the rest of old Russia. Drawing on the private archives of two great families -- the Sheremetovs & the Golitsyns -- Former People is also a story of survival, of how many of the tsarist ruling class, so-called ”former people” & ”class enemies, ” abandoned, displaced, & repressed, overcame the loss of their world & struggled to find a place for themselves & their families in the new, hostile world of the Soviet Union. It reveals how even at the darkest depths of the terror, daily life went on--men & women fell in love, children were born & educated, friends gathered, simple pleasures were cherished. Ultimately, Former People is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.