Andrei Rubanov spent fifteen years creating these autobiographical stories. On the one hand, the reader is presented with a layered account of growing up—familiar highs and lows, rare, hard-won victories, and unexpected defeats. On the other, it is a chronicle of a troubling era after the collapse of the USSR and a reflection on how to seek meaning where it has to be assembled anew from dreams of a better future and the painful experience of years lived through. "Shameful Feats" is a series of portraits of its time, in which each day demands a choice between profit and conscience.