Behind the adventure

Anya, Pavel, Yakov, the boatwoman, residents, print shop, rear house, connecting door, relief shelter and rescue are fictional. The courtyard passage is an invented setting. Pavel’s lantern gestures are improvised, not Morse code or a documented signalling system. The shelter light is a fictional ending, not an official relief signal.

St. Petersburg suffered a catastrophic flood on 19 November 1824, or 7 November under the calendar then used in Russia. Warning lanterns were displayed on the Admiralty tower as the danger developed. Accounts differ on their exact lighting time, which the story does not specify. Presidential Library: the flood of 1824.