Americans | Russians | Germans | Brits
Americans
Inspired by
Marat Nurimbekoff (41) — Moscow CIA station chief; loosely based on Murat Natirboff, one of the CIA’s early Cold War intelligence officers, who served as the Moscow Chief of Station in 1984–1986.
Ambassador Hart – U.S. Ambassador to the USSR; loosely based on Arthur A. Hartman, the Ambassador to the USSR Moscow from 1981 until 87.
Mike Demidoff — Amanda’s husband; loosely based on Nicholas S. Daniloff, an American journalist, U.S. News & World Report correspondent in Moscow. In 1986, he was briefly detained by Soviet security services on espionage charges, sparking a diplomatic crisis.
Prof. Jim Ackerman (55) — nuclear and atmospheric physics; leads the Berkeley half of the exchange program Jack coordinates. Inspired by Thomas P. Ackerman, one of the five real TTAPS co-authors (Turco, Toon, Ackerman, Pollack, Sagan) who published the actual 1983 Nuclear Winter hypothesis.
Real people
Joanna Stingray — real person — singer
Ted Turner — real person
Russians
Inspired by
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Volkonsky (69) — academician and physicist; regarded in-world as “the father of the Nuclear Winter theory”; of Volkonsky princely heritage. Loosely based on Prof.
Vladimir “Volodya” Bunin — KGB operative based in Dresden. That’s all I have to say about this character.
Real People
Artem — real person — Artemiy Troitsky.
Germans
Inspired by
Matthias Hoffman (27) — actor; Inspired by the real actor, Matthias Freihoff, lead actor in the film Coming Out that debuted on the night the Berlin Wall fell.
Real People
Bärbel — real owner/manager of Metzer Eck, representing the third generation of the family-run establishment located at Metzer Straße, Prenzlauer Berg, East Berlin.
Brits
Inspired by
Paul — The Sunday Times journalist in East Berlin (Part III), inspired by Peter Millar, The Sunday Times correspondent in East Berlin. During East Germany’s tense 40th-anniversary parades in October 1989, he was arrested by the Stasi during civil demonstrations, heavily interrogated, and expelled from the country. He returned two weeks later and reported live the night the Berlin Wall fell.