The novella “The Innkeeper” is quite short, but despite that it covers a huge stretch of history—more than half a century: the revolution, the Great Patriotic War, and the postwar years. The main heroine is Vera—Verochka Butova—deprived of a father’s love and care. She marries a military man much older than her. In him she finds the feeling of security and confidence in the coming day that she needs. And although her future life turns out far from as happy and cloudless as the young Vera imagined, she still has the strength and wisdom to never lose faith and hope for the best—and to remain, in any circumstances, a woman: a woman with a capital letter, confident in the all-conquering power of love.
In 2004 Stanislav Govorukhin made a famous film based on the book “The Innkeeper”—“Bless the Woman,” starring the magnificent actors Svetlana Khodchenkova, Inna Churikova, and Aleksandr Baluev. The plot line and ending of the film differ somewhat from the novella, so the audiobook version of “The Innkeeper” will be interesting not only to those discovering this work for the first time, but also to the fans of Stanislav Sergeyevich Govorukhin’s film.