The Life of Lidka of Petrograd

The seventh book of stories by Eduard Kocherhin — the chief artist of the G.A. Tovstonogov Bolshoi Dramatic Theater — contains six narratives on various subjects. These real stories cover more than half a century of the author's life. Here... are episodes from his wanderings as a homeless boy in the Urals, recollections of the early years working at the BDT, and the history of the brilliant production of Verdi's opera ‘Don Carlos’ in 1979 in the Finnish city of Savonlinna, where Kocherhin, already a well-known theatrical artist by that time, served as the set designer. The title of the book comes from the central story dedicated to the life of an outwardly unremarkable Russian woman, Lydia Naidenova, who endured many hardships of the Soviet era. The appendix includes archival photographs and sketches of theatrical costumes from the author's archive.