E. S. Koc hergin’s book is based on memoirs of the harsh postwar times when he escaped from the Omsk children’s shelter for the “enemies of the people” to his home in Leningrad—an escape that lasted more than six years, with all its twists and turns, and wandering through “Soviet-land” with its then state institutions: NKVD children’s shelters and colonies.
Moscow literary critic Andrey Arkhangelsky, who was on the jury of the “National Bestseller-2010” contest, characterized the work of the winner: “This is a grand thing for all times—about how Russia is really arranged and how to survive in it: you have to run fast, learn how to grease the palms of bosses and officials, be able to pretend you’re nobody, beg, entertain people in simple ways, always be ready to flee and have no debts to anyone.”