After Russia's involvement with the War ends in 1917, Zhivago returns to Moscow and to his wife Tonya, son Sasha, and his uncle Alexander, whose house in Moscow has been divided into tenements by the new Soviet government. Zhivago briefly returns to work at a hospital where his old friend, Misha Gordon, is the director of the hospital. Despite supporting the revolution, Zhivago is suspected for having bourgeois tendencies. Gordon arranges for travel passes and documents in order for Zhivago and his family to escape from the continuing unrest in Moscow to the far away Gromeko estate at Varykino in the Ural Mountains. Zhivago, Tonya, Sasha and Alexander now board a heavily guarded cattle train, at which time they are informed that they will be traveling through contested territory, which is being secured by the infamous Bolshevik commander named Strelnikov.