Authors note: Hope you enjoy the next chapter that takes place in the capital of the Soviet Union, Petrograd... was renamed Petrograd during WW1 because "burg" is a German word and the city was named after Peter the Great who wanted to make Russia more like the Western countries like Germany, so the city was renamed (and obviously renamed back to St. Petersurg later.) Also for those of you that don't know the Russian language does not have articles in it (the words a, an, the, are not included) so it is not a typo, the words do not exist in the Russian language and often when speaking english they do not included the words, although my spell check didn't agree with me i did my best to excluded articles.

Petrograd

Russia sat at his large desk, across from him sat Nicholas II, the Czar of the Soviet Union.

"How are railroads coming along?" Ivan traced the top of his pipe.

"Our men are working as fast as they can." Nicholas answered.

"And our numbers?"

"We are low on soldiers, but what can we do? We are enlisting every man we can find."

"Recruit women"

"Ivan! Women would get raped and killed by men in military"

Ivan stopped messing with his pipe and looked up, "Da, but women get raped and killed anyways, in military they have gun to protect themselves, on street they only have their screams to save them."

"Remind me why you want to be in this war?"

"Because, Russia is big country, it is hard to feed all of my people on our own crops alone, if we have warm water port then we can trade, we can win those ports by holding Baltic States and Crimea in this war."

"Very well," Nicholas stood, "I will get our generals to recruit women immediately."

The two of them shook hands before the Czar turned to leave. As he opened the door a small red head girl ran in with her hands up in the air.

"Uncle Ivan!" she jumped up into the big man's lap."

"Da? My little Anastasia." He chuckled

"Can I stay with you today?" she smiled up at him.

"If it is alright with your Papa."

"I will send for you at five Anastasia." Nicholas nodded as he left.

Anastasia gave a cheer and began parading around the room dragging Ivan's pipe behind her, but he did not mind, she was special to Ivan. She was the only child he could tolerate, not because she was the Duchess, but because she gave him hope. Something about the little Romanov girl made him believe that she was the future of his people, this little symbol of happiness and love would be the person who brought the Soviet Union into the world as a strong country.