Bitter Taste of Salt. The Choice

1956.

In a village in Vologda Oblast, a girl named Nina has to grow up too soon. Day after day, she goes through trials, and the threat turns out to be much closer than she ever thought.

And in the boundless Kazakh steppes, a boy named Vitya dreams of the sea, feats of heroism, and real life. But chance shatters his hopes and forces him to choose: exhausting work as an auto mechanic, or the dangerous pull of the criminal world.

Vologda land, the Volga region, Kazakhstan, and the Far East—paths of people from different ends of the country unexpectedly converge when fate puts them before a difficult decision: to take responsibility for someone else’s life, or to let a person have the right to go their own way—even if that way leads to death. Nina and Vitya risk everything and rush across half the country—from the Pacific shores to the remote forests of Vologda Oblast. It seems the worst is behind them… but the past knows how to catch up exactly when salvation is already within reach.

“Bitter Taste of Salt” is a novel in two parts, a powerful and piercing drama about dreams and the price of courage—an alive, deep portrait of the times. This is a story about the resilience of ordinary people who find within themselves the strength to fight for those they love.