Lazarevka. Sunlight on snow. And ideas of this kind: death does not love solitude. Only presidents are accustomed to it. People who, in their genes, guard the memory of serfdom, dream of becoming slave masters. Those who guard the memory of free men dream of liberty for all.
Our friend Vitya, the village’s former telephone engineer, and Sasha, the former prison warden for the district, sold us fifty kilos of potatoes, at 5.70 hryvnas per kilo. I bought three extra buckets from the neighbour, Valya: those are for Petya Khazin. Coming back from the countryside, we stopped by at Grandma Raya’s and then at Petya Khazin’s, because his store of potatoes always dwindles too quickly.