Tatyana Tolstaya is an internationally acclaimed Russian novelist and broadcaster, and well known in Russia as a scion of the country's most famous literary family. In this essay 'White Flowers', she tells a moving story from her own family, the story of her grandmother's chance encounter with British journalist William Stead. This is a poetic story about revolution, ideology and the individual, through which we glimpse a different future for Russia and for Europe. It is recorded with an audience at the Hermitage in St Petersburg, which was known as the Winter Palace when it was 'stormed' in 1917.