Authors Quiz: "The Bronze Horseman" by Paullina Simons | 15 Questions

Answer: Aleksandr Pushkin

In the book, the poem is one of Tatiana and Alexanders' favorites, and they quote lines from it often. The poem deals with death and the great city of Leningrad itself:

"The little houses are bent down,
Some - shifted, some - razed to their ground
By awful forces of the waves;
The bodies, waiting for their graves,
Are lying round, like aft fight, merciless."

Answer: Try to talk her parents into bringing him home

As you may or may not remember, Tatiana instead goes there herself to bring Pasha home, but it is already too late and things have become very dangerous there. Alexander must go to rescue her when her family finds out what she has done. Tatiana mistakenly believes it is only because her sister Dasha asked him to, when really it is, of course, because he loves Tatiana.

Answer: Darla

She "represents everything that is dear to Tatiana", and these nicknames are her family's way of showing this as well. Tatiana's deep love for Dasha is both her strength as well as her weakness, especially when it comes to Alexander. Eventually he comes to respect her for this, but in the beginning it is infuriating for him, as well as to the reader!

Answer: The Cartwheeling Queen of Lake Ilmen

"The Cartwheeling Queen of Lake Ilmen" is what the kids at their summer "dacha", or vacation home, used to call Tatiana. She would perform cartwheels, sometimes naked, over and over right into the water. When Alexander heard this story, lovingly told by Dasha, his affection for her only deepened.

He later teased her about it, and made her show him when they were in Lazarevo at their cabin.

Answer: "Buy as if you're never going to see these goods again."

Tatiana could not comprehend how prophetic these words would become. She even refused to buy the motor oil that would later have become a much needed commodity. Her father even yelled at her for buying some of the things that Alexander DID convince her to buy, and Alexander set him straight, in Tatiana's defense, of course. Alexander had a very hard time trying to save the Metanovs, as he did not want to scare them, but he wanted to make sure they knew that the situation was a bit more dangerous than they thought.

The fact that they thought the war would be over by the time winter came was just not realistic, but Alexander had to make sure he didn't reveal too much confidential information as well.

Answer: A Palm Tree

The Metanovs were confused by this image, as none of them had ever seen one before or even knew what it was. "A palm tree?" Dasha said quizzically. "It's a tropical tree. Grows in the Americas and the South Pacific." Of course only Tatiana knew just enough about Alexander's background to know that he knew much, much more about America than he let on!

Answer: She takes shelter in a train station and the Germans bomb it.

Tatiana manages to survive under the rubble of the train station by piling the dead bodies on top of her in a pyramid-like shape. Just by chance, Alexander comes upon the wreckage of the station and decides to sift through it and the bodies. Once he sees that dead bodies could not have possibly fallen this way on their own, he knows that someone must have placed them there. Tatiana manages to save her life AND get herself rescued with her quick wit!

Answer: She is participating in a sewing circle.

When they first saw each other again, there was a long and fierce embrace. It soon became clear, however, that Tatiana was angry and thought Alexander had come there for Dasha. Tatiana thinks this because he asks her where Dasha is right after their embrace.

She could not have been more wrong! Had Dasha survived, things may have been much different. Alexander must prove to Tatiana that he did, in fact, come to Lazarevo for her and her alone.

Answer: They used gold teeth. Dasha had pulled them while still in Leningrad and working as a dental assistant.

They used four gold teeth for the rings and paid the jeweler with two more, as well as some vodka. Dentists really did pull the gold teeth of patients who would come in wanting it done right after the war started. The dentists would get paid by being allowed to keep some of the teeth for themselves. Dasha was a dental assistant, so she was allowed to take a few home for her pay, as well as having a higher ration for being a worker at the time.

Answer: In Leningrad, when she defied Alexander and followed him back from Lazarevo.

At first Alexander was mad about her being pregnant, because she refused to go back to the safety of Lazarevo. But then the plan was hatched to get them to America and he began to see that things could be different. He was also upset that Tatiana gave him her blood until she could give no more, all while being several months pregnant! This is when he first finds out, when he got injured on Lake Ladoga and was in the hospital in Leningrad. Tatiana had become a volunteer there and actually went out on the ice to try and save him.

He was not very happy to hear that, either.

Answer: He was pretending to be a Finnish pilot while trying to escape to the US and the truck got pulled over, he got recognized.

This was a very fitting end to Dimitri's sorry existence. He was only looking out for himself right up to the very end. He got Alexander arrested the day before they were set to leave for America and then acted as if he knew nothing of it. He was a coward, and died a coward's death. He did not give Tatiana up in the end though, something that still suprises everyone to this day.

Answer: Over two months

Once she got ready to leave, Tatiana tried to board a boat without the captain noticing. He caught her and said she could ride for some American dollars. He had noticed her when she would sit by the river every morning learning his routine so that she could slip on unnoticed, and ended up being a very nice guy. It was on his boat that she later entered America finally.

Answer: Anthony Alexander Barrington

Tatiana was already in labor when the ship arrived at the port on Ellis Island. She was also very sick with tuberculosis. She ended up staying in the hospital for several months, and was very close to death when they first arrived. The deck hands who discovered her thought she was, in fact, dying, and one careless individual suggested that they just leave her so that she would not have her baby on American soil.

Answer: Eating ice cream

Tatiana was eating her favorite flavor, Creme Brulee, and acting as though she had not a care in the world. It was this that drew Alexander to her. Only people like Alexander who were privy to certain information could really know how bad things were, even in the beginning. And it amazed him that this girl could be doing something so normal on a day that he knew was fraught with urgency and doom.

Answer: Tatiana went to the store with money and came back with a jar of dirt mixed with a small amount of sugar from the sugar factory that got bombed. Also to make the bread rations stretch farther, they started mixing the dough with sawdust.

It is amazing to read about this horrific event that happened and you just feel like you can really feel the characters' pain. This is in large part due to the way Ms. Simons writes. Her personal connection to Russia also gives the book a sort of authenticity it may not have had otherwise.

She is cited as saying that most, if not all, of the events that pertain to what happened during the actual siege came from events that have been proven to be fact and also personal accounts of what members of her family went through who lived through it themselves. Ms. Simons lived in Leningrad, now called St. Petersburg, in Russia until she was 10.