Rowing To Niagara Falls. Aut. Rima Karalienė 2021

Rowing To Niagara Falls is a true story about the dramatic youth of Sofia, a girl born in Warsaw. In 1940, her mother brought her to Vilnius, believing it would be easier to find her husband and Sofia’s father, who had been deported to Russia along with other Polish officers. All searches proved fruitless, and life in Soviet-occupied Vilnius became a nightmare — Sofia’s mother was constantly interrogated by the KGB, while the occupiers who had moved into their apartment brought violence and fear into their home.

Weakened by poverty and postwar hardship, fifteen-year-old Sofia was taken by her mother to the “Žalgiris” rowing base on the banks of the Vilnelė River to regain her strength. It became more than just an engaging outdoor activity with friends and travel — as would become clear thirteen years later, rowing was her only way to reach the West and ultimately Canada, where her father had been living for twenty-five years in the city of Niagara Falls — one of only two hundred Polish officers who escaped the mass executions in Katyn.

Driven by an unrelenting desire to see her father, Sofia devoted sixteen years to rowing, became a two-time European champion and two-time medalist, traveled across much of Europe — but in the end, had to make a painful compromise with her conscience and values.

The novel is based on true events, drawn from the memories of those involved, archival material, media publications, and photo and video records.

The author, Rima Karalienė, is herself a former rower — the daughter, niece, wife, mother, and mother-in-law of rowers. Surrounded by rowers since childhood, she has always been deeply interested in the origins, traditions, and values of the sport. Rowing has become her lifelong passion, and researching and preserving its history — her greatest calling.

"Rowing to Niagara Falls" would not have come into existence without Rima Karalienė’s first book, "Rowing Through the Barbed Wire Fence", whose main character was her father. That documentary novel about sport was written to tell the stories of those rowers who never had the chance to gain fame because of persecution under the Soviet regime. While writing it, the author spoke extensively with her father’s teammates, studied photographs, videos, and press archives, and traveled to the places described in the book. It was during this research that she first heard the life story of Sofia Grucova. Even before finishing her first book, Rima already knew what her second one would be about.

All the facts in the book are true — just as revealed by Sofia herself. The author sought to make everything as authentic as possible; what she could not learn directly from Sofia, she searched for in the press, online archives, and video materials, retracing Sofia’s paths. In 2019, together with her husband, she traveled to Canada — the destination of this entire story. They visited Montreal with its Olympic rowing course, Toronto, Quebec, other cities, and of course, Niagara Falls — including the key locations in the city that play an important role in the book.