Kolan

Grigoriy Hodzher was born in the family of a fisherman and hunter in the village of Verkhniy Nergen (now Nanais District of Khabarovsk Krai) on April 5, 1929. In his youth he studied tinsmithing, was secretary of the village council, and worked in a fishing crew. In 1956 he graduated from the history faculty of the Herzen LGPI.
Hodj*er’s first works were printed in 1953. A separate edition of his collection of stories “First Shifts” was published in 1958. He wrote novellas such as “Seagulls over the Sea,” “Emoron Lake,” “The Great-Grandson of Dersu Uzala,” “The Last Hunt,” “What Color Is Snow?,” “Gai*chi,” “An Empty Rifle,” “An Apartment with a View of the Amur,” and others. A documentary novella “Naykhin*ts*” is devoted to frontline Nanai veterans. In the trilogy “The Broad Amur,” the life of the Nanai people is shown from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 1930s. Hodj*er is also the author of a number of works for children. He actively collected and published Nanai folklore, and compiled collections of literary works of the peoples of the Soviet Far East.
In the novella “Kolan,” the writer describes his childhood. This is a story about boys who were participants in a diving team. In the writer’s library there is a book he searched for for a long time—“A Special Purpose Detachment” about the EPRON (Expedition for Special Underwater Works). The writer also wanted to name the novella proudly “EPRON people,” but reviewers recommended that he avoid that title—so the novella is really about childhood during wartime.