Nikolai Andreyivich Bogach, Chief of the Guards Directorate of the KGB
Marshall Bulgakov, Supreme Commander of the Red Army
Carlyle, Secretary of State of the United States
Dr. Alex Cousins, an American doctor
Viktor Moiseyevich Dimitrov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Albert Farmer, British Diplomat with the British Embassy in Ulan Bator, Outer Mongolia
Mikhail Moiseyevich Ginzburg, a Jewish engineer
Vera Danilovna Ginzburg, his non-Jewish wife
Ivan Vasilyevich Godorov, a Georgian and former prisoner under Stalin
Maxim Sergeyevich Grivetsky, a General in the Red Army, Soviet missile expert
Katrina Ivanov, a train attendant
Kishkin, a Ukrainian engineer; Ginsburg's boss
Kenneth MacBaren, an Australian traveller
Natasha, Godorov's former fiancée
Colonel Patushkin, Tanya's former lover
Mary Peterson, American tourist, retired librarian
Platinov, Godorov's friend
The President of the United States
Tanya Revveka Romoranova, train attendant
Shmiot, a former prison inmate with Godorov
Sokolovich, a senior inspector of the railway
Mr. and Mrs. Trubetskoi, a Communist Party official, and his wife
Vladimir Trubetskoi, their son
Anna Petrovna Valentinova, Professor of History, resident of Irkutsk
Voikov, Officer of the Railway Police
Iva Leonidovitch Yashenko, a red-haired KGB agent, Zeldovish's assistant
Fyodor Petrovich Zeldovich, KGB agent and confidant of Dimitrov