The Sunny Shore of Genoa. Russian Happiness Italian Style

A city by the very blue sea. The heart of the great Genoese Republic, which stretched colonies across 7 seas. The city that equipped expeditions to the East during the Crusades—and the homeland of Columbus, the most famous traveler to the West. A city of palaces turned inside out—here, luxury is reliably hidden behind dirty walls and wrought-iron gates; a city of brokers and bankers, traders, sailors, and port-side girls… Natalia Osis is a playwright, writer, PhD, and teaches at the University of Genoa, where she has lived for the last 16 years. This book is evidence of great love, born in theater and carried from the stage of the Chekhov Festival into Liguria. In it meet intoxicating sunny Italy (Genoa, Naples, Venice, Milan, Tuscany) and the Voronezh steppes above the Don; Russian dachas with a samovar under an apple tree; and everyday Italian life down to details—together with theater and literature, pesto, basil, and focaccia, love for life and 4524 days of happiness.

"The life of an emigrant is a sweet apricot: first the juicy flesh, then the hard pit and its kernel. It can turn out sharp, like almonds, and it can give bitterness. …And by the hearth-in-the-kitchen-dining room, with a view of the garden and the lake, you finally calm down. Tuscany’s landscape leads you toward immortality. There’s no fuss, no rush, no time—so there is no death either. Only sun, colors, hills, pines, and cypresses—and you, with a glass of chianti and a piece of plain bread in your hand, made equal to a point in space, on equal rights with a snail crawling along the table’s leg."