At first, Sanya worked for news channels, and then suddenly moved from Moscow to a provincial town to teach schoolchildren literature. Why - she herself does not know. It is difficult with children, but even more difficult with other teachers, with the principal, with the system. Every day Sanya dreams of quitting, but she continues. In the second year, something begins to work out. Or is it just her imagination? Her children are so youthful and strong - will they cope with the encroaching future?

This novel is my happiness. A quiet but gripping page turner about a teacher's journey among the people, which turned out to be non-colonial and empathetic. Sveta's shimmering description of a snow-covered, timeless space, in which, like in a cafeteria porridge, a school, minibuses, church bells, teachers, the headmistress, children, parents, flower pots, notebooks, cigarette butts, desks, and the main character, Sanya, float—a portrait of the country we find ourselves in.

Evgenia Nekrasova, writer

If you try to compress our modern life to the size of a single institution, you'll get a school from a novel by Svetlana Olontseva.

Sergey Vereskov, writer, book reviewer