Heartfelt Merriment

The essay by Yuri Koval, included in the author’s collection “Beware of Bald Men and Mustached Men,” was published in 1988 and is dedicated to Boris Shergin, a person whom Koval often called his spiritual mentor. Shergin is a storyteller, a connoisseur of everyday life and the folklore of the peoples of Pomorye. He not only brought Koval into the world of professional writers by recommending his friend to the “Writers’ Union of the USSR,” but also helped him discover the talent of a true storyteller—one that doesn’t fit into the generally accepted genre definitions.