Anna Rud

Orléans is a typical provincial Russian town on the banks of a salt lake called Yarovoye. The town is 'steeped in evil'. But it isn't some great evil. This evil is of a banal and everyday type: Lida the hairdresser has indiscriminate affairs, followed by numerous abortions; Rudik the doctor enjoys an endless supply of women, thanks to his position, neglecting his paralyzed father who lives with him and hoping the old man will die soon; the local officer of the law has no qualms about committing murder; a magician from the local circus might actually be sawing women in half on stage... One day, a mysterious man appears in this quiet backwater town. He goes by the title of the Executor: at least that's what it says on his business card...

The story of the growing up of Lyosha, who turned 18 years old. Life asks him more and more difficult questions about love, family, duty and his path than it did at 14. And he, just as then, must answer them himself.

A group of American pilots from Alaska ferry Airacobra fighter planes across the ocean on Lend-lease. The orderly course of life is disrupted when it becomes clear that the American pilots are attractive and charming young women. The feelings of the Russian young men collide into barriers of culture and language resulting in a host of awkward, funny, and sometimes tragic situations.It is the story of Russians, Americans, and natives of the Far North. It is the story of man and woman in war. Love and death are squeezed between the hills as human fates are destroyed and born.

In the small town of Kandalaksha, Petya lives out a fantasy life as a traffic cop. He has a holster, a wooden gun, and the locals humor him by following his "orders." When a convict escapes from a nearby prison, Petya joins the manhunt as any good officer would.

A village so small all the residents not only knows each other, but also can easily recognize the neighbor's cow face a frightful news. It was announced on TV that the most powerful coronal mass ejection in the Earth's history would take place. Humankind has only 24 hours left. The world runs mad in different ways getting ready for the apocalypse, and a unique local scenario of waving the life goodbye is inverted in the village. Tables are put together, pies are baked, and some gather strength and courage to make the most important decisions of their lives... But what about the doomsday? It just doesn't arrive. Oops, got it wrong! The situation is heating up. Everybody realize they can't go on as they did before.

Big cities are full of lonely people.

Alex glides his mouse tenderly over online images of Vika. He has been smitten ever since he saw her with her friends and cannot get her out of his head. Unfortunately, Vika is beyond Alex’s reach because he's not welcome in her neighborhood. Nonetheless, Alex sneaks into a disco at her school and finds up the courage to ask her to dance. Moments are intense as Alex feels infatuation for the first time.

Ilya and his mother came to their father on the weekend. There the young man meets a village girl - Tanya. Ilya falls in love with her and hopes for reciprocity ... But the young man is disappointed.

The author of The Kolyma Stories and many other works spent 17 years in the terrible GULAG camps on Kolyma. The term that Varlam Tikhonovich received in 1929 was for distributing Lenin's letter to the congress, in which he criticized Stalin. Nowadays, this letter is called the "testament of Lenin"…