Notes of a Little Hen

9 hrs. 14 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Maria Ryakhovskaya

Narrator Tatyana Telegina

Description

The village of Zherdyai near Moscow is seized by treasure-hunting fever. A half-crazy old woman, the granddaughter of a famous sorcerer, claims she knows the place where Napoleon’s treasure is buried — but it is cursed. A girl named Masha searches for the treasure, then for a spiritual guide, then for love. In fact, this frenzied search is the true plot of the novel: from an honest attempt to find support in religion — through superstition, the temptations of sectarianism and theosophy — to pagan worship of rock leaders and liberation from it. The novel spans a decade in the heroine’s life — from the end of Brezhnev’s rule to Yeltsin’s times — and is filled with portraits of wise women and psychics, collective farmers, writers, racketeers, rock heroes, and hippie leaders who today have become figures of the metropolitan beau monde. “Yeltsin is a hippie, he knows the word alternative,” says one of the “old-school” ones. There are even more passions in the village: here people do not hide their feelings. To kill an enemy — even from the grave, to get half a liter — even at the cost of one’s fake funeral, to gain wealth — on a Napoleonic scale. The work combines elements of an adventure novel, a mystical thriller, a comedy, and a family saga. It was awarded by the magazine Yunost.