Who is Charlotte Lemonnier from Dreams of My Russian Summers and what is their importance?

Charlotte Lemonnier is the narrator's grandmother, and the main storyteller of the novel. Charlotte is also sometimes addressed by her Christian name, translated to Russian, Sharlota Norbertovna. Charlotte was born in France in the early 1900s, in the village of Neuilly-sur-Seine before moving to Russia and marrying a Russian soldier named Fyodor. Even though her family always begged her to return home to France, Charlotte stubbornly wanted to stay in Siberia, feeling more at home there than she ever did in France.