Александр Башуров

Set around the Volga river, the story begins around 1900, when Russian peasants are let free and allowed to own their farmlands. But soon they suffer from losses during the 1917 Russian Revolution and the following Civil War. Then, the major national catastrophe is started by Stalin: his communist government kills millions of farmers and steals all their food supplies, causing the longest and deadliest famine all over central Russia during the 1920s and 1930s.

The story of Ermak Timofeevich, whose campaign for the Ural mountains served to annex the Siberian lands to the Moscow kingdom, in the second half of the 16th century.

Young Nina was hired as a teacher at a vocational school. She is full of optimism. Trying to get in touch with her charges, looking into books on psychology and taking timid steps towards rapprochement, she tries to understand their problems and feel the very “material” that she will only have to come to terms with...