Kazan Boy

They were friends, but they understood the word “guy” differently—which is what caused the fierce hatred. It was a foreign neighborhood, “someone else’s asphalt,” and the chances of running into trouble with locals there were through the roof. But aren’t they real “guys” who would never flinch and back down? Ilyas and Arkasha broke into a “Volga,” shorted the wires, and with enthusiastic screams raced across the bridge over the Kazanka toward their native 28th district. And all of this to show off in front of the beauty Yana—whom both of them were head over heels in love with… Ilyas got two years, Arkady four. When Ilyas came out first, he formed a group that started to “cover” the market. Money appeared. They could have spent it on Yana, but one day trouble burst into the boy’s life, and everything suddenly got mixed up: friends became enemies, cops became brothers—and that burning love blew apart his heart and mind so thoroughly that for it Ilyas went all in…

REVIEW: “Vladimir Bogdanov’s writing is a heartbreaking nostalgia; it’s an extremely bright and juicy world of youth—everything to the maximum: feelings, loyalty, vows, and fights… It’s just astonishing how important for us once were the concepts of Honor, Friendship, Love. The book rips the soul open with its directness and sincerity, and at the same time it heals…” — Aleksei MAKEEV, writer, co-author of detective novels about the investigator Gurov.
The author of the novel, Vladimir Bogdanov—whose youth and adolescence coincided with the years of the Soviet Union’s collapse, the collapse of morals and mores, values, and life ideals—went through dramatic trials in a youth group, where he learned both friendship and betrayal, loyalty to one’s word, and love.