Volodimir and Vladimir

Translated from Hungarian by ChatGPT and the author.

This novella follows the love story of a Ukrainian IT engineer and a Russian woman under the shadow of war. It explores not only the senselessness and brutality of conflict, but also the power of human connection — how two lives can be transformed in a world where survival comes at the cost of conscience. Love, betrayal, and forgiveness intertwine, revealing what the world could be… if it were different.

Human, beware – look closely at your world.

This was the past, this the raging present –

Carry it in your heart. Live through this broken world,

And always know what must be done

To make it something else."

 Miklós Radnóti, “He Could Not Bear It”

My name is Volodimir Piatkin. I’m twenty-nine years old – a descendant of Cossacks who once gave their hearts and lives for freedom. At last, I belong to the majority nation. I know our history is steeped in suffering and struggle. Still, the first time I truly listened to the Ukrainian national anthem as an adult, something unsettled me. The military tone. The cult of blood sacrifice. The readiness to die. It didn’t feel like a song praising life – it felt like a hymn to destruction. And every time I hear it, my stomach tightens. But I love my homeland. I do. I just don’t believe that the value of life can – or should – be measured by the nobility of death.

My mouth is wide. Dunya’s is narrow, full, and gracefully curved – lips that don’t thin out at the edges like most people’s. Because of this, her expression often appears severe, as though she were perpetually pursing her lips in quiet irritation or silent anger. But she’s not angry. That’s just how her mouth is shaped. It’s like Monica Bellucci’s lips – only thinner, more sculpted. Its width barely stretches beyond the space between her tear ducts, as if nature had precisely measured and fitted it there. Mine, in contrast, runs nearly to the corners of my eyes. On that basis alone, I might look like someone who’s always smiling. But I rarely do. When I think, I lean forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped, eyes fixed on nothing – as if trying to extract the hidden logic of the universe from the vacuum before me.

Dunya, my dearest love, is Russian by birth – but in every other way, she’s the archetype of Slavic beauty: fair, blonde, composed. We first met during the Euromaidan. If the government hadn’t collapsed… if the protests hadn’t ignited… if Yanukovych hadn’t fled… I might never have met her. And so I often ask myself: should I be grateful to Yanukovych for – however indirectly – leading me to her? Or should I curse his name and send him to rot in the deepest circle of Hell, alongside every puppet and thief he stood with?

In November 2013, to my shock, our president stepped away from the long-awaited Euro-Atlantic integration deal. Everyone knew it was a pro-Russian move. And with that, the avalanche began. What followed was a wave of resistance that surged into full force in Maidan Square. Protesters occupied the square, standing their ground peacefully but relentlessly, day after day. Until January 16, 2014. That day, Parliament – like thunder from a cloudless sky – passed a law by show of hands. A law that, in effect, legalized dictatorship. Everyone knew what it meant: they were planning to crush the protests. Anger exploded. Crowds flooded into Kyiv. Resistance spread.

I arrived on February 20. The train creaked into the station under a dry, icy light. It was minus twenty Celsius. As we stepped off, our breath burst in soft, white clouds.

To gather courage, someone began singing:

“The wide Dnipro weeps and wails…”

We joined in. I slipped past checkpoints, made my way down the slope of Instytutska Street. The southeastern end was deserted, rubble-strewn. On the square side, a line of shield-bearing protesters was falling back toward the Millennium Bridge – tilted as if some invisible wind was pressing against them. Opposite them, from the upper side of the square, troops advanced in tight columns – four, five across. They fired in bursts, blindly ahead, as if even they didn’t know who they were fighting. We could only hope their rifles were loaded with blanks.

A loudspeaker thundered from the Maidan:

"We need medics at the podium – urgent! Resuscitation! Four ambulances! As many as you can, boys!"

The square echoed like a furnace – booming noise, rolling smoke. Gunshots rang out, drowned beneath the roar. Two protesters were hauling tires onto the bridge. One hurled a Molotov cocktail into the barricade. Black smoke coiled upward. A lone bird glided past the golden angel atop the column. Then the crowd collapsed all at once. Running downhill. Scrambling back.

"Snipers! Two or three in the Ukraina Hotel!"  the loudspeaker bellowed. It sounded like a twisted broadcast from The Hunger Games.

The bridge was now engulfed in swirling flame and choking smoke.
That’s when I saw the first fallen body –
limp, like a ragdoll, one arm swinging uselessly. A boy in a blue jacket was dragging him by the collar, a bright orange helmet flashing on his head. His shield bobbed awkwardly in front of him – it wouldn’t have stopped a pellet from an air rifle. Three others flanked him. After each step, a red stripe froze across the cobblestones. Drag and drop. Drag and drop. The phrase pounded in my skull. Where are the shots coming from?! I screamed.

Brother, don’t shoot!

Among the crouched defenders, someone fell backward. His shield collapsed over him. A gush of blood leaked out from beneath. The loudspeaker kept begging for medics. Tear gas burned our throats. Molotov flames leapt higher. More ragdolls were dragged across the stone. More crimson trails froze beneath them. I doubled over, gagging. A cold hand touched my forehead. Another braced the back of my neck. 

"It’s okay. You’re okay. Just breathe." whispered a young woman. "Were you hit?" 

"The blood… " I groaned, as she pulled me under the bridge. "I throw up when I see blood.

The pillar’s icy stone pressed into my spine. A tracer bullet sparked off a nearby lamp post. All I could see were her eyes – violet-warm. Her face was wrapped in a knitted scarf, even her nose hidden. The hat was pulled down to her eyebrows. She was half a head shorter than me: a violet-eyed samurai pixie. As she spoke, her breath clouded beneath the pale scarf.

That light-colored outfit – she was a perfect target, I thought. hat is she even doing here? Only Ludmilla, my little sister, was missing from this madness...

"Here, drink some tea!" she handed me a small Coke bottle filled with dark liquid. "I’m going to help treat the wounded! " she added, then darted away.

"Wait, your tea! " I called after her.

She waved it off.

"What’s your name? "I shouted again, but she was already gone." At least show me your face... I thought.

By nightfall, the Maidan had fallen silent. The square was in ruins – smoke, soot, ash everywhere. As if some fire-breathing King Kong had rampaged through – but no, it was us. God’s restless children, gone blind in rage, left behind this wreckage. The Berkut and the uniforms had vanished. From above, the angel guarding our independence looked down without emotion, over the last glowing barricades… and over the square, now heavy with grief and reeking of anti-Russian hatred. In front of a burnt-out building, behind a scorched pillar, a mourning crowd had gathered. Bodies lay stretched on the ground – once a first-aid point. No more gunfire now, just sobbing. Mothers and wives crying out. Men crying silently, their fingernails cutting into their palms. The air stank of death and scorched rubber. 

Five years passed. And that mysterious girl – only her voice and the color of her eyes returned, again and again, in my dreams. 

Much has happened in the world since then. Crimea fell into Russian hands. War broke out along our eastern border. A civilian airliner was shot down – maybe by us, maybe not. Maybe on purpose. Maybe by mistake. The following year, as if on cue, the unlucky half of the world got up and started walking. Masses streamed westward, chasing the glow of a rainbow-colored promise. Some were met with cheers. Others triggered bitter conflicts between nations. Human trafficking became big business. Behind it, invisible machines, unknown powers. In our region, we started hearing about black-clad men terrorizing minorities. We might’ve even torched a church – people hiding there from our own fury. We became a sovereign nation, rich in natural resources. And yet – poverty persists. Emigration bleeds us out. Our hope dissolves into Western illusions. 

Something is brewing, people. This won’t end well.

Meanwhile, I finished my degree in IT. Pored over English textbooks. Built websites. Dreamed in algorithms. And still – my bank account kept shrinking. One April evening, I sat on a bench along the quay. Leaning forward. Elbows on knees. Hands clasped. Staring into the Dnipro. A barge chugged upriver. The port cranes loomed like stork-legged dinosaurs. Swallows circled above in the cloudless sky. The breeze carried lilac and the ripe, fermented scent of the river. Somewhere behind me, a metallic clatter cut through the silence. And then –  Someone sat beside me. A hand rested gently on mine.

"How are you, boy? You survived? Still sick at the sight of blood?"

The voice was unmistakable. I turned, breath caught in my throat. I had imagined her face so many times – her shape, her build – and always got it wrong.

But her eyes…

those violet-warm eyes…

they never left me.

That surprise, the shiver rushing through my body, the simple warmth of her hand on mine –  those, I’ll never forget.

She smiled. A high forehead. Rustling, straw-gold hair swept back by the breeze. Thick eyebrows arching toward her temples. Jawline like the curve of an opening boomerang. She kept smiling. So beautifully I couldn’t look away.

Maybe Eva Mendes has teeth like that – slightly forward, bright, too wide for her mouth. I was stunned.

My Dunya – my Dunya – was Russian. Her full name: Avdotya Romanovna. Say what you will. I don’t care. I didn’t care then. I never will. Not even if she’s Russian a hundred times over. We’re young. Adam and Eve. Man and woman.

And if I’m to be the man, then I’ll do what was written for Adam –
earn our warmth and hearth with the sweat of my brow.

Dunya’s shoulders were broad, her waist narrow, her hips curved like poetry, her skin soft like silk. And when, at the peak of our lovemaking, her thighs wrapped tight around me, and her whole body shuddered, it felt like lava was bursting skyward. In those moments, I didn’t want to live any longer – because I’d already been given everything that makes life worth living.

We were planning to move to England. Settle. Take root. But somehow, we got stuck in Hungary. Or rather – COVID got us stuck.

Dunya struggled more than I did. Her job was brutal – twelve hours on her feet at the factory line, followed by twenty-four hours of so-called rest. She often slept through that entire day. Woke up foggy, complaining of aching legs or her back. Fortunately, we had a Hungarian doctor who spoke fluent English. Dunya described her symptoms. I translated. The doctor listened attentively, asked sharp questions, explained everything calmly – though, more often than not, all she could prescribe was rest. We even began messaging her through Messenger. I’d describe a problem, she’d reply or call us shortly after. It made a huge difference.

What more could an uprooted patient ask for? God bless her for it.

One night, just before her shift, Dunya didn’t get up. She couldn’t. The world slowed to a crawl, like it was tipping into another dimension. No explosions. No gunfire. Just silence – dense, invisible, all-consuming. A new era had begun. Dunya lay there motionless. It wasn’t sleep. It was as if something alien was holding her captive. Even her skin hurt. She said existing hurt. I stroked her forehead. It burned. Fever. The bed shook beneath her. Nearly forty Celsius. I gave her meds, put a cold cloth on her forehead.

"It’s okay, it’s okay, just drink some tea " I whispered. But in my mind, I saw Italy. Corpses lined up in hallways. Nurses crying. Terrified eyes behind oxygen masks.

"Can you breathe? "I asked.

She nodded. Her cough was dry, violent. Her eyes burned with fever. I called the family doctor. Her voice came through calm, like from another planet:

"Keep the fever below thirty-eight. Give her fluids. Cold compresses."

The next day, men in hazmat suits came. Swabs shoved deep into our sinuses – all the way to our thoughts. I was only worried about her. Later, the doctor called: we were both positive.

"How are you feeling?"

"Dunya’s sick. Really sick. Me? I’m on the edge."

"You’re young and strong "she said. "You’ll get through this. Fluids. Metamizole. Moist tongue. Keep calm.

Normally, I’m a calm person. But this time – no.

"If she coughs blood, or can’t breathe, or the fever spikes uncontrollably, call me immediately."

"Coughs blood? " I asked.

"It’s possible " she said. "You’re young and strong. You will overcome it."

Dunya burned for five days. Coughing fits shook the walls. She barely ate. Sipped only what she could. On the sixth morning, her temperature was finally under thirty-seven. She was hungry. Her voice returned. Her eyes began to shine again.

If relief were a stone on my chest, that stone would’ve dropped so hard it crushed my legs. Maybe they’d need amputation.
Maybe I’d limp for the rest of my life – and each step would remind me:
she could’ve died.

But she didn’t.

It took weeks for her strength to return. Half a year until her sense of smell came back.

But now she was herself again – Skyping in Russian with her family every evening. "Back home, they didn’t have enough vaccines. And even if they did, people wouldn’t exactly line up for them."

My case was mild. A slight fever. Some coughing. My long limbs ached like hell, but only for a few days. Compared to what Dunya went through, mine was a hiccup.

The weeks turned into quiet months. We were simply grateful to have survived. And that, for a while, we were immune.

Dunya was absentminded at times, but her mind and heart were always in the right place. She cooked borscht for me. Made holodets. Tracked down Ukrainians working in town, and brought them together. It was as if she were wrapping a bandage around my homesickness.

Her absentmindedness sometimes drove me crazy – but it was impossible to stay angry at her.

We’d sit in the kitchen. The window cracked open, letting in the cold February air. The curtain fluttered. I’d be buried in my laptop. She’d be cooking. The scent of borscht already curling into my nose.

“How many times do I have to tell you?! Put the damn net away and come eat! " she scolded me in Ukrainian.

"Let’s better practice English! "I tossed back, as I always did, without even looking up.

"Maybe when people across the ocean learn Russian! "
she snapped, switching to Russian – as she always did when I pushed the topic. "Who do they think they are? While we were building Blazhenyi, they were still burning wigwams over Native heads!"

"Well, your dear Stalin’s not heading to heaven either – after what he did to us with the Holodomor."

I gave the CNN news ticker one last glance:

“New Ukrainian language law takes effect. Russian Foreign Ministry calls it a provocation…”

Finally, we sat down to eat. She dug in with gusto. I was practically drooling just watching her.

"Try mine! "I barked in Russian.

She looked up at me, those warm eyes wide. Took a spoonful from my plate. Tasted it. Her face softened.

"It’s exactly the same " she said, surprised.

"I still can’t eat it " I muttered."

"Why not?"

"Because you didn’t give me a fucking spoon."

"Ha ha! Oh, right! Well… we’ll make up in bed. Little Vovochka’s welcome anytime.

We worked. We lived. We loved. More and more Hungarian words stuck to us. We debated: stay or go?

Dunya wanted to stay.

"I’ll learn Hungarian if I must. It’s safer here than with the tomyks. The Brits hate Russians."

"So do the Hungarians " I said."

And in my head, I added: rightfully so.

Then came the email from Ludmilla:

“Come immediately if you want to see Grandpa alive. I’ll be online tonight.”

The memory of COVID. The waiting. The terror. It all returned. I went to my boss.

"I need to leave urgently. My grandfather is dying."

"Take care on the road " he said. The news is getting worse. Are you taking Dunya? I wish the world lived like the two of you do together."

I could hardly wait to see Ludmilla again – my tiny, delicate little sister.

"Well?! Tell me! " I blurted out when she finally logged on. She hesitated. Her voice was strange.

"He’s very sick. He’s going to die."

"Has a doctor seen him?"

"No… He won’t let anyone. Says he’s lived enough. Says we should leave him be."

"And you… you’re just letting him?"

"He says: come home. And if you don’t make it in time, his last wish is this – That we read Robinson. That we run to the forest. That we learn it. Because something terrible is coming. The forest will protect us. That’s how he survived the Holodomor."

"He told me that a hundred times already. I’ll come. But only for a few days."

"Oh! Good you ask! As for me… nothing much… except: I’m engaged.
Look at the ring!"

Suddenly Dunya wrapped her arms around me from behind and whispered:

"Don’t go. I have a bad feeling. Stay with us. Vovochka wants you to stay too."

And that’s when it hit me. I was going to be a father.

Still – I wanted to go. I had to see my grandfather. There was something I needed to tell him. Not much – just this: I’m going to be a father. And this: I’m okay. Imagine that, Grandpa – I became self-sufficient. I’m not just surviving, I’m helping others too. I’ve earned knowledge. They trust me with machines – real ones. Complex ones. Machines that could terrify you. No, I don’t need the forest anymore. I’m a city man. Always have been. And I want peace. With everyone. Even with my old Russian boss from Kherson. Let him hoard the fruit of others’ labor. Let him pick from stolen BMWs and Audis. Let him. Karma will take care of it.

Who do I love?

Dunya, Grandpa. Of course she’s Russian. But you’re wrong: we must reconcile – just like the French and the Germans did. Besides, Dunya is… so beautiful. So beautiful. And so –

Dunya held me close and whispered:

"Stay with us, boy..."

Before I could decide, the message arrived. He was gone. Guilt tore through me.

Dunya changed too. Her movements slowed. Her gaze drifted, as if mourning someone she had never even met. At night she curled up behind me, and I felt Vovochka kicking from inside her belly.

"Does it hurt? " I whispered, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"No! What are you saying… "she replied, and I knew she was smiling in the dark.

But by morning, we were both silent.
At work, tasks piled up on my screen – but I was scrolling through baby care forums, comparing cloth diapers with premium absorbents. And then the news flashed across the screen:

“Russian troops have entered Ukraine. A long convoy of tanks is moving toward Kyiv…”

I froze. Sat there like stone in the glow of the screen.
Only a hand on my shoulder pulled me back – My boss.

"Go home, Volo. Dunya’s waiting."

She was crying when I arrived.

"What do you want from me? I wasn’t even there! Do you think it feels good to go from centuries of speaking Russian…to having my mother tongue turned into a bloodstained rag? Where’s my justice?!"

Her voice thinned, but her pain thickened.

"And now that your glorious language law is punishing us – Don’t forget the Poles. The Hungarians too. Because now you decide who gets to speak what in their own cities? And you really think you deserve your own country?"

I said nothing. Sat there with my elbows on my knees, fingers laced, listening to her bitterness pour out.

"You know what’s the worst? That even peace taught you nothing. After '90, there was a chance. You could’ve chosen agreement. But no – you wanted NATO. Donbas. Missiles. Pride. What did you think? That a Russian mother doesn’t deserve to feel safe? And now you’re shocked that someone got fed up?"

Her eyes trembled, but the tears had dried.

And I…I sat there, listening like someone trying to decode a foreign language. I couldn’t read her pain – Not through the shadow of my own.

"You played the big boys. And it’s fine that you punished me and mine for it? You even killed Yanukovych. Say what you will, he was ours. One of our boys. He protected us. You destroyed him – methodically, surgically. And you expected us not to fight back? That we’d keep our nukes in display cabinets? Well, here’s your peace…"

We stood still for a while. Then she turned and went into the kitchen. I quietly followed, but only as far as the hallway. I couldn’t go in. I watched from the doorway as she sorted the baby clothes. Bonnets, tiny diapers, knit booties, a teddy bear blanket were lined up on the counter. She kept folding the blanket over and over again, as if at least her hands knew what to do. As if she were already seeking refuge from a world preparing for war again.

“What if it’s a girl?” I asked quietly. “Will it still be Vova?”

“I’ve known for a long time that it’s a boy,” she said. “I knew even when there was nothing to see. I just knew…”

The next morning, when I woke up, she was already in the kitchen. A bowl of steaming borscht was waiting on the set table. She was barefoot, her white blouse billowing softly around her waist, her belly already nicely rounded. The spoon trembled a bit in her hand, but she smiled.

“Here. For your war wounds. I made it with cherries this time – just the way your grandfather liked it.”

I didn’t answer. I opened my arms. She collapsed into them.

“What can we do? None of this is our fault.”

“As long as the big boys and the warmongers keep shoving each other’s heads under the water, all I can do is make a warm, human bowl of borscht. Stay with us…”“

"We should probably get that stroller too,” I said. “Little Vova will never put on a uniform…”

We sat down to eat in silence.

I had to go. My work was waiting. In the shower, a flash hit me: what if a rocket struck right now? A smart missile I myself might have programmed. Me, with my knowledge, capable of instructing a weapon: fly there, little genius, hit that spot – where another Volo, with another Dunya, was folding baby blankets. Would I be capable of that? Is there that kind of money? Where would it come from?

The image and thought were so powerful they made me dizzy. I opened my eyes, but the thought remained.

“At least I’m alive,” I whispered to myself as the water kept running. And I couldn’t decide whether that was a relief or a curse.

Dunya’s words from yesterday had lodged in my soul like shrapnel. She spoke of old wounds we’d never dared to truly discuss. Slowly I realized how much had remained unspoken between us – and maybe now it was too late. I felt that hope had been swept away by a dark, cold tide, and we were just drifting in it. Some wicked force had crept between us, bitten into us like an invisible poison, seeping into our love – as if that was where we were most vulnerable. What once was a refuge had become a battlefield. And we stood in it – facing each other in the same trench. Only now did I fully realize what I had long suspected: we had become pawns. Expendable, interchangeable, insignificant pieces in a cruel game we didn’t start – but we were paying the price.

And then something broke in me. Maybe the last of my faith. Or just my patience. I don’t know. But the words clawed their way out. I turned on myself, silently, inside: What the hell should I do now? Now… in this wretched situation? Why can’t I finally be honest with myself? What am I still waiting for? Besides… what could one even do?

Collaboratte, man! Fairly. No sneaking, no smartassery. Just… unite. Think. Together. Because this is no game anymore. It’s here. The climate crisis. That damned COVID, too. Isn’t this what we should be thinking about? Not who shoots first, or who’s to blame, or whose missile is bigger. But about what will become of all this if we keep going this way.

Do we really want to set fire to our own home? Is this why we climbed out of the animal kingdom? Just to crawl back now? To destroy everything, then start over – if anything’s left?

And… aren’t there enough brains, enough scientists in Russia? Or in that greedy, self-satisfied America? And China? Just sitting, waiting, silently. Why don’t they sit at the same table? Why don’t they think about whether this all still makes sense? Whether… it’s even worth having children on this collapsing planet?

In the following days, I scoured the net day and night – Bucha dominated the headlines. I felt like something was tearing me apart from the inside. My body and heart were here – my soul and heart were there. One part of me whispered, “Go!” The other: “Stay!” And both were painfully real. Which was my true homeland? The one where I was born? Or the one where my child would be? Both were sacred. But together, they were impossible. And that impossibility sucked the air out of me – I was paralyzed, unable to choose.

I was tormented by the need to decide: over there were my brothers, my past, my language – here was my love, my child, my new home. Whichever way I turned, it felt like betrayal. Betrayal of the other. But in the end, time chose for me. War reached for me like sewage flowing backward through a pipe: I swallowed, choked, and it swept me away. Days passed, but everything inside me froze.

Blood poured from the internet, while at home, my love folded Vovachka’s blanket. Which finger should I bite?

In the end, I didn’t choose – the war chose me: it swallowed me whole. I slipped into my fatigues without realizing.

It was late summer when I returned home and signed up as a volunteer. I ended up in boot camp – training went on 10-12 hours a day. I never imagined how hard a Kalashnikov kicks. Then I was assigned to the IT systems of American heavy weapons. I was in charge of missile guidance. “Yes, sir,” I said. I worked diligently, precisely – “solid work,” they said. They trusted me. Didn’t ask about my past. Didn’t know about Dunya…

One night I dreamt Vovachka was crying, and Dunya cooed to him in Russian. I didn’t understand any of it.

Sometimes I scrolled through Messenger or played her voice messages:

“It’s baby formula, you idiot, not gunpowder!”

“Kiss me, boy…”

“You really left me alone during labor?”

“It’s raining, we’re waiting – they haven’t started the heating yet.”

“Come home. We’re waiting.”

I hadn’t replied in weeks. Even silence had become a weapon. So had forgetting.

One morning, as I buttoned my combat uniform, I looked into the mirror. A bearded, hollow-eyed stranger stared back. I nodded to him: Let’s go. Back to work.

By mid-November, we’d retaken Kherson. We let off victory salvos, even though we were down to our last shells.

We roamed the ruined streets – the devastation was indescribable.

The horror of burnt-out wreckage mounds.

The sorrow of bombed-out buildings with gaping, wall-less facades.

The angry sadness of balconies about to collapse.

The howls of skin-and-bone, red-eyed stray dogs with tails tucked between their legs.

In front of a shelled, near-collapsed apartment block, someone stood. Back to me. Like a statue. I didn’t know all the uniforms yet – he must’ve lived here, I thought. But as I got closer, I saw the white-blue-red armband on his left arm. And I opened fire. Reflex and rage. My first shot at a living human being.

He spun around. Grabbed his shoulder as he fell. The world cried out. Blood bubbled from between his fingers. My sergeant stood over him, legs apart.

“Nice shot,” he said, watching him twitch.

Then, slowly, he unlocked his machine gun. Shot the left foot. Then the right shin. Then the thigh. Then the chest. But by then, the young soldier with the narrow mouth had stopped moving. Mouth open in a scream, dead eyes staring at the flock of crows circling the November sky.

My sergeant stepped aside from the steaming pool of blood creeping toward his boots. He leaned over the body. Fished through the pockets. Pulled out a blood-soaked leather wallet. Slowly opened it. “Private Vladimir Romanov,” he spat with disgust. “We don’t take prisoners,” he added. “The bastard was planning a wedding – may he never find peace, not even in the grave.” He held up a photo.

The picture showed a boy with violet-blue eyes, a narrow mouth, smiling with a prominent set of teeth, sliding a ring onto my sister Ludmilla Piatkina’s finger. He had teeth like that Latin American actress – can’t remember her name right now.

In my recurring dreams, a fleet of enormous sky-vehicles appears above our city, hovering just a few hundred meters above the rooftops. They move slowly and silently, like cigarette smoke curling in still air. They block out the sun – the landscape darkens under them. From their shimmering mercury bodies, tubular, coiling, flashing devices extend toward the ground.

Groups of frightened people stare skyward, petrified. Others drop to the ground, hands clasped behind their heads. “We urge the population to remain calm,” booms a thunderous voice across the square. Then beams of light shoot from the machines toward the buildings – leaving golf-course-sized, city-block-wide black, smoking craters where they strike.