Valentin Sidorov is a connoisseur of the paradoxes of Russian everyday life, for whom the absurd is not a cause for panic, but a point of support. His heroes walk among nuclear bears, wage philosophical battles in a parlor car, and settle relationships against the backdrop of a queue at Dixie.
Sidorov is equally close to family fights in the spirit of seventh-graders and the pragmatism of the city, where romance comes true only on occasion. Here love is a hard craft, work is almost a diagnosis, and loud dreams are defeated in the battle with the nuances of repair and the next family guests.
Each story has a recognizable weariness and a cynical tenderness for an era that didn't particularly expect its heroes, but inherited them anyway.
