I Believe You

Fede didn’t get lucky—his father died in the war, and his mother never returned from the taiga. He lives with an aunt who doesn’t really need him. The boy tried to escape his miserable existence on a plane, but minors don’t sell tickets.

Unexpectedly, Fede’s fate changes because he meets a pilot under rather dubious circumstances. But gradually, distrust turns into friendship.

One day the pilot takes Fede on a flight. A burst of adrenaline with testosterone turns into an accident. The plane crashes in the taiga…

If it weren’t for the author’s fabricated schizophrenic loss of a fully rational pilot’s trust (???), the story would probably be more enjoyable. The overreaching details strain things a bit too, and in the performance discipline: the Russian Bani-onis sometimes overthinks the Lithuanian one until it loses credibility.