Raisa is a dynamic and round character. She is also the novel’s deuteragonist, as her development from isolated survivor to courageous partner mirrors and informs Leo’s own transformation. When introduced, Raisa is a schoolteacher trapped in a marriage of convenience. She is a product of the oppressive Soviet system, forced to conceal her true thoughts and feelings to ensure her safety. Her relationship with Leo is not based on love but on pragmatism; as she later confesses, “I married you because I was scared” (197). This reveals the core of her initial character: a woman whose personal relationships and identity are dictated by the pervasive fear of the police state. She performs the role of the loyal wife while secretly harboring resentment and distrust for Leo and the system he represents. The ultimate revelation of her past trauma as a refugee during the war and the reasons for her infertility contextualize her guarded nature and her instinct for survival.

Her lie about being pregnant is a complex act; it is both a final, desperate act of self-preservation and the catalyst that forces Leo to make a definitive moral choice to protect her. However, Raisa’s journey toward agency truly begins with her and Leo’s exile to Voualsk. Stripped of his MGB authority, Leo ceases to be a figure of power and becomes merely a fellow outcast. This shift in dynamics allows Raisa to set the terms of a new relationship based on equality. Raisa becomes an active participant in Leo’s investigation, contributing her intelligence, perceptiveness, and moral clarity. It is she, for instance, who first articulates the need to trust ordinary people for help, challenging Leo’s state-ingrained paranoia. Simultaneously, her willingness to accompany him to Moscow and participate in the dangerous hunt for the killer signifies her evolution from a life governed by fear and self-interest to one defined by purpose and a commitment to justice. By the end of the novel, Raisa has developed a genuine romantic relationship with Leo and stands beside him as they adopt the Zinoviev sisters, an act that solidifies their shared commitment to healing the wounds inflicted by the state.

Andrei is a serial killer whose methodical brutality drives the plot, making him the novel’s primary antagonist. He is a round character, a psychologically complex figure whose violence is a direct consequence of historical and personal trauma. The Prologue establishes the origins of his behavior in the Ukrainian famine of 1933, a state-engineered catastrophe. During a desperate hunt for food with his older brother, Pavel disappears—abducted, though Andrei believes he has simply abandoned him. This event shapes his entire existence. His adult murders are a ritualized reenactment of this childhood hunt. The string around his victims’ ankles, the use of bark in their mouths (Pavel had taught him to chew bark to curb his hunger), and the pursuit through the forest are all elements drawn directly from the day his brother disappeared: The reenactment allows Andrei to reassert control over the situation while also serving as a coded “message” to Pavel, whom he hopes to reconnect with. As he tells Leo, “I killed them so you would find me. I killed them to make you come home” (417). He operates under the delusion that this campaign of terror is the only way to reconnect with the one person he truly loved. This characterization makes Andrei the living embodiment of the theme of the cycle of trauma and violence.

This is not the only way in which Andrei’s characterization supports the novel’s depiction of the Stalinist regime. His use of the railway system, a symbol of state infrastructure, as his hunting ground highlights how the machinery of the state can inadvertently facilitate hidden violence. Outwardly, Andrei maintains a facade of normalcy. He is a tolkach, a factory expediter, a job that allows him to travel across the country without suspicion. He has a wife and two daughters, a family life that masks his monstrous secret. This duality underscores the novel’s critique of a society that denies the existence of crime, allowing evil to fester beneath a veneer of utopianism. His final confrontation with Leo is not merely the capture of a killer but the tragic reunion of two long-lost brothers, both irrevocably shaped by the same historical event. Andrei’s death at Leo’s hand is a violent end to the cycle of violence he perpetuated, a cycle that began with the state’s own brutality.

Vasili serves as the novel’s secondary antagonist and a foil to Leo. A static and flat character, he personifies the MGB’s institutional cruelty, ambition, and corruption without any of Leo’s initial idealism. Vasili is defined by his relentless pursuit of power and his personal jealousy of Leo. His backstory involves denouncing his own brother for making an anti-Stalinist joke, an act that demonstrates his willingness to sacrifice any personal loyalty for professional advancement. Unlike Leo, who struggles with the moral implications of his work, Vasili operates with cold pragmatism, seeing betrayal and violence simply as tools of the trade. He represents what Leo could have become without a conscience.

Throughout the narrative, Vasili acts as a primary obstacle to Leo’s investigation and survival. He deliberately misdirects the search for Anatoly Brodsky and callously executes Mikhail and his wife, both of which cement his role as a villain. Later, he relentlessly pursues Leo during the latter’s investigation into the serial murders. Vasili embodies the predatory nature of the Soviet system, reflecting how the motif of hunting and trapping operates within the MGB itself. His motivations are consistently self-serving, and he views Leo’s developing morality as so incomprehensible as to be a sign of mental illness. The irony of his death at Andrei’s hands reinforces the novel’s major themes; a man who built his career on enforcing the state’s ideological lies is killed by a criminal whose existence the state denies.