Frosya Korovina

In this novella by popular children’s author Stanislav Vostokov, reality and fantasy are playfully intertwined. The action takes place nowadays. In the Vologda village of Papanovo lives a girl, Frosya. Her parents—geologists—spend almost all their time on expeditions, and Frosya is taken care of by her grandmother. Their home is a real monument of wooden architecture—more than two hundred years old! But time and the elements keep causing some part of it to fall off, and it has to be nailed back in place. One day, when her grandmother is returning a ridge cap struck by lightning—an old wooden horse’s head—she falls down the stairs and breaks her leg. She is taken away to Vologda, to the hospital, and Frosya is left alone.

Then their distant relative Filimon arrives—he is a forester and a sorcerer—and he sends his bear, Gerasim, to help Frosya around the house. Gerasim understands everything and even talks a little. To keep him from going into winter hibernation, he needs to be given coffee—twice a day.

Not long before New Year, Frosya goes to the city to visit her grandmother. Around the same time, the director of the museum of wooden architecture comes to Papanovo. A local drunk assures him that no one lives in the Korovin house. So the monument of architecture is dismantled and taken away. And when the girl returns from Vologda, she discovers that the house is gone! Fortunately, her classmates come to help. They take a tractor without asking and drive to the museum. Will an eight-year-old girl be able to bring her home back? Now listen...