Upstream

After her father’s death, Alia’s life and her family’s life changed: her mother shut herself away, grandmother Iza became overly protective of Alia, and grandmother Taya avoids any contact with her granddaughter. After finishing the second year of university, Alya goes to the village of Pinega, where grandmother Taya lives and where her father died many years ago. She wants to figure out her family history and understand why an elderly neighbor believes that Alya can free her from the creature that entered her in childhood.

Tina studies graduate school in the philology faculty and writes a dissertation about a mythical creature that inhabits women from northern Russian villages along the Pinega River. She immerses herself in the region’s dark history and mythology, while her personal life becomes complicated due to a romance with a married academic advisor, which means she rarely leaves her rented apartment on the outskirts of St. Petersburg.

“I was drawn into the upper reaches of the Pinega, swept away by its waters, and led into the forests that stretch along both banks. After the first pages, I wanted to live in a hut, sleep under the awning, and leave food for a house spirit. Breathe the northern air.

When I came across a mention of itikotniki (hiccup-sprites), I practically jumped: you don’t often meet them in folklore. Anyone who hasn’t heard about hiccups should definitely read ‘The Upper Reaches of the Pinega,’ where everything is told in detail.

And special pleasure comes when it turns out that it’s not what it seems. You look, you look— and then suddenly you understand everything is different. Now there’s only the question of how to live with this further.” – Anastasya Renžina, writer.