It’s 90 years now since the formation of the USSR (December, 1922). In this issue we have gathered fiction and documentary from the eye-witnesses of its history including a kind of “the book within the magazine” in which some well-known authors of different generations, nationalities and political views (such as Eugenij Evtushenko, Yourij Mamleev, Andrej Volos, Boris Ekimov, Inna Kabish, Eugenij Kluev, Igor Zolotusskij, Alexej Tork, Pavel Krusanov, Valentin Kurbatov, Sergej Zdan, Dmitrij Shevarov, many others) create his or her own myth about the country that for the last 20 years exists only in the virtual space of memoirs, apocrypha, controversies, attempts of scientific comprehension, manipulations with the social conscience and our fantasies.

 

AKRAM AILISLY. Stone Dreams. A requiem-novel.

This novel by the People’s writer of Azerbaijan A. Ailisly is not only a work of art but also an outstandingly honest and brave deed of the writer who — being a real, not for show, patriot — for the sake of the honour and dignity of his people doesn’t fear to tell the bitter and painful truth to its face.

 

ARTHUR DOLYA. Leninskij Avenue.

What is there in the past of the protagonists of this novel? Moscow cramped communal flat, long-long queues, Dante Alighieri read in the third school-form… And what is there in their today’s life? Is it only the old people’s poverty, glamourous super-models and… Still “the breach of the world” goes through the heart of the poet. As ever. With no variants.

 

ALEXANDER BUZGALIN. The USSR: Uncompleted Project.

Why had the socialist system come into existence and why has it sunk into the past? What is the socialism itself? New answers to these questions — in the article of the well-known economist A. Buzgalin.

 

GURAM SVANIDZE. From Casual Observations of a Sociologist.

These are witty and acute essays of the Georgian sociologist and writer over the nature and displays of the Soviet mentality in the language and everyday life of our recent past.