Farewell to Matyora. The Fire

Farewell to Matёra — a story about flooding an island to build the Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station. The village of Matёra is doomed to go under the artificial sea—along with the history of entire generations who lived on this land before. The old people go out to defend their little homeland. They cannot accept the destruction of the huts where they were born and raised, of the graves where their ancestors are buried, of their native birches and pines. After all, where tradition is lost, where the connection between a person and the past, between a person and his ancestors, between a person and God is broken—can an “new life” be built artificially on the ruins of real life?