Orange Portrait with Specks

Student Yulia arrives in a small town for her internship. Quite by accident she meets a boy named Faddeyka. Very quickly they become good friends, even though it seems there can be nothing in common between a nineteen-year-old girl and an eleven-year-old boy.

Besides the fact that Faddeyka is a prankster who is always looking for adventures, he’s also a great dreamer. One day he tells Yulia a strange story: that people live on Mars. Between the two most numerous Martian tribes—Itte and Taurins—there is an endless war. Everyone loves fairy tales, but is this one really a fairy tale?

Faddeyka has a “silly” character. He can’t stand aside when someone is in trouble; he feels someone else’s pain as his own, and he senses his connection to all people. That’s why fifth-grader Faddey Setkin goes to get a vaccination instead of his classmate, who is terribly afraid of injections. That’s why Fа-Deyk’s set (Itte’s network) helps a captured boy-Taurin escape.

In Krapivin’s works, the theme of loyalty and betrayal— or the theme of honesty altogether—always stands very strongly. Faddeyka’s sensitive conscience can’t even imagine thoughts of betrayal! He constantly checks himself— is he honest, has he betrayed himself? After all, betraying oneself is sometimes easier and less noticeable than betraying another! It is precisely his living conscience that helps him find an answer in a difficult situation—what to do when you have two friends? Helping one means betraying the other? Or realizing that war is a betrayal of your planet!

Faddeyka is a boy-teenager. He’s “adult” enough to tell good from evil, but he remains a child. And what can a child do? Commit an exploit! When adults can’t or don’t want to be heroes, it’s up to children… And on a distant planet, the boy’s word managed to stop an endless and meaningless war!

Maybe because children are maximalists; they can’t compromise. Stubbornness is characteristic of all Krapivin heroes. We adults, burdened by life experience, try to smooth out the corners, get around contradictions. But boys go straight ahead! From this uncompromising nature comes a certain harshness. For Faddeyka, the question is always put to the edge: either you’re a coward or you aren’t; either you’re a traitor or you aren’t?

Perhaps we lack this simple clarity—that there is no third option. Always, in any situation, you stand on one side of the barricade or the other. And let our conscience keep asking us, in the clear voice of an eleven-year-old boy!

Radio play based on Vladislav Petrovich Krapivin’s story of the same name.