"This book will astonish and inspire you. One woman's shocking true story of abduction, war and survival." - Brian Whitney, author of SUBVERSIVE
In the fall of
1994, 21-year-old Elena Nikitina disappeared. Drugged and kidnapped by a
group of Chechen gangsters, she was driven through the night to Chechnya.
Kept prisoner in a tiny room, she waited while the gang tried to ransom her
back to her mother.
But a few weeks
after the abduction, war broke out between Russia and Chechnya. Life
became very cheap, very quickly, and tiny Chechnya became an apocalyptic
killing zone. All contact was cut off. There was no electricity.
There was no telephone service. There could be no negotiations for
Elena’s release.
Elena was one
lost soul, powerless, and at the mercy of hardened criminals who now fancied
themselves patriotic freedom fighters. And she was their enemy – the face
of the Russian invader.
Through eight
horrifying months of captivity, trapped in a land where countless people were
dying every day, Elena fought desperately to stay alive, stay sane, and
not lose the one thing that kept her going - hope.