Vyacheslav Melekhov

This is a collection of portraits: 23 short stories about the Mari women, a sort of Decameron suspended between magic and realism, in which the Autonomous Republic of the Marij El serves as a backdrop for the collective history of a people of ancient tradition. A journey into a mysterious and unknown part of the world.

Miron Alekseevich, director of a paper and pulp mill, goes to bury his wife Tanya in the place where they once spent their honeymoon. He goes not alone, but with a photographer named Stork, to whom he tells touching details of his life with Tanya. The narrative weaves together the memories of the characters, as well as the rituals and beliefs of the Meri people, a small Finnish tribe that once lived in the Northern Volga region and dissolved among the Russians.

Valera Sapogin returns home after serving in the army. A young man experiences many life lessons before he finds his place in life.

Somehow, three came to these lands to the camp of ataman Sidor. One of them recently escaped from Turkish captivity, where from the centurion dying on his hands, he learned about a chest hidden in these places with the Ryazan treasury. The Cossacks, having conferred, decide to go in search of her, but the Turks are already looking for the treasury, who once hid her here.

As punishment for fighting with a superior officer, Grigory Vlasov is exiled to a small unit located in the Urals, where almost everything is led by women. However, the heart of the exiled major has not yet recovered after the last romance, so he ignores flirting of local ensigns until the beautiful Natalya, the leader of the local women, warms his frozen heart. But office romances are not welcome in the army ...