The Great Fire

Vladimir Markovich Sanin (1928–1989) was an indefatigable traveler who visited the most inaccessible places on Earth — in the Arctic, Antarctic, and on the equator, one of the last Soviet romantics who sang the praises of distant journeys and heroic professions. Most of his books are dedicated to sailors and polar explorers, whose lives the author knew firsthand. Such is the story included in the collection, "Obsessed," about the shipwreck during experiments on icing, or the novel about firefighters, which gave the title to the entire collection. Taking real events as a basis — the fire in the Hotel "Russia," which occurred in 1977 — Sanin, for the first time in artistic literature, tells about this complex profession. Sanin was always distinguished by kind and subtle humor, which permeates not only the story "The Island of Merry Robinsons," in which the guests of the sanatorium located on the island try to organize a "commune," but also a story that at first glance seems bleak — "Old Friends," a narrative about front-line soldiers who, many years after the war, find out who among their company was the informant that sent an innocent person to death in the Gulag. In this collection, various facets of Vladimir Sanin's talent are revealed. A man of heroic biography, he knew how not to lose heart in any situation, and readers of Sanin's books will certainly learn his main life and literary credo: to relate to circumstances that seem insurmountable with faith in the better.