Marina slowly set down the calculator she had just used to total up the family budget. A ringing silence hung in their living room. Outside the March sun lit up the roofs of Moscow, but inside the room was half-dark—Igor had deliberately drawn the curtains before the talk. “So you mean your mother is going […]
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Svetlana stood in front of the mirror, trying on her third dress in a row. The blue one seemed too bright, the black one too strict. She stopped on a beige dress with a neat little collar. Tonight her fiancé was taking her to meet his parents, and the girl was as nervous as if […]
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Alyona woke up early, as always. Outside the window it was only just beginning to get light, but inside her the familiar bustle was already rising—she had to make breakfast, get her husband ready for work, and then deal with her own tasks. The three-room apartment in the center of Moscow demanded attention: dust settled […]
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Marina was wiping down the mirror in the manicure room when the last client of the day came into the salon. The woman had booked a haircut with Oksana. Marina stepped out, showed her where she could wait, and went back to cleaning. Friday—the end of the workweek. Tomorrow was a day off; she’d finally […]
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Olga received a one-room apartment from her grandmother three years ago. It was small—thirty-two square meters—but in a good neighborhood, with windows facing the courtyard. Her grandmother left it to her granddaughter as the most valuable thing she had. Olga remembered the old woman saying, “This is yours, my dear. So you’ll always have your […]
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Anastasia was in her third year at the Faculty of Economics when she met Igor. The guy worked as a courier for a transport company, earning thirty-five thousand, but he dreamed of more. He said he would soon find something serious, decently paid. Nastya believed him because she loved him. They had a modest wedding, […]
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A black car came to a silent stop in front of massive wrought-iron gates. Beyond them began a short dead-end street with eight identical, solidly built houses, cut off from the rest of the world by a high brick wall. A small, self-contained kingdom. A security guard in a uniform jacket, bored in his glass […]
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— I don’t understand why you’re paying strangers when you have an apartment! We tried so hard for you!” Anna read her mother’s message out loud, as if saying the words might change their meaning. It didn’t. She was sitting at the kitchen table in a rented one-room flat, counting crumpled bills and carefully writing […]
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Gleb froze in the middle of the living room. In his hand he held a glass of cognac, which swayed slowly, casting amber glints on the wall. His face took on a strange shade—neither quite pale nor quite flushed, as if two colors were fighting for the right to claim his skin. “What kind of […]
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Marina froze in the middle of the kitchen with a towel in her hands. She had just finished making dinner—stewed chicken with vegetables, her husband’s favorite. Plates were already on the table, the cutlery neatly laid out. She had tried to create a cozy atmosphere after a long day at the medical center, where she […]
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