Saspyga

Karina Shainyan is a writer, author of the novel "With a Key Around the Neck" and other books. If dead horses join the herd as if nothing happened and living people are forgotten in the taiga, it means that the saspyga is roaming the Altai mountains again. There is nothing tastier than its meat. And nothing more desirable. The tourist Asya separates from the group — she needs to be brought back. The cook Katya finds the runaway but is forced to go with her. Katya is troubled by an unnaturally obedient horse and haunted by vague memories of hunting the saspyga; all she wants is to continue following the trail. Will she be able to overcome herself, cope with the past, and save Asya from a terrible fate? "Saspyga" is a journey into a world where everything is real: the mountains, the horses, the people, and the demons. The pain they all experience is also real, and from this sincerity, clarity, and straightforwardness, one becomes very scared at times, while at other times, one feels an overwhelming urge to cry. Karina has written an important and beautiful book." (Anna Kozlova) "Shainyan may have invented a new subgenre — 'Altai Gothic.' In her novel, the fate of a modern city girl is woven into the mythology of Mountain Altai. The taiga, mountains, horses — and the saspyga, both a mythical and real creature, whose meat can soothe all sorrows..." (Yulia Gumen) "There are authors who can write accurately and lovingly about places and people, making them warm, alive, and recognizable. There are authors who can tell dizzyingly captivating stories. Those who can do both are rare. Karina Shainyan's novel is both an engagingly eerie horror and a tense psychological drama, as well as an inspired hymn to the Altai land." (Galina Yuzefovich)