Father’s Letters

Alexey von Wangenheim was a prominent Russian meteorologist and professor who became a political prisoner during Stalin's Great Purge. In 1934, he was condemned to the Gulag on the Solovki. His letters to his daughter Eleonora tell stories of a scientific exploration he is on to shield her from the truth of his imprisonment. After several years in the camp, he was executed by firing squad in 1937. 

His daughter later wrote a book which was published in English as Stalin's Meteorologist: One Man's Untold Story of Love, Life and Death.