The Bay Leaf Is Not Eaten

"The Bay Leaf Is Not Eaten" – one of those novels for leisurely reading that makes you forget about everything. A story of family, love, and the life of ordinary people born at the beginning of the tumultuous and at times terrifying 20th century.

1921. Lavrik Lantratov returns to Moscow and immediately gets caught up in the whirlpool of events that can and must break the Old Believers. But he must endure at all costs: survive the collapse of his ancestral nest, maintain his faith and himself, and save his loved ones.

At the Alexeyevskaya water station, in an orphanage, and at a museum bureau, Lantratov and his circle must make a difficult choice: to burn out, live with a conscience or thoughtlessly drift along the current.

And what, in such a case, can heal the burned heart of a young man? Perhaps, love. Thus, Vita, his Lily of the Valley, enters Lavrik's life.

1991. Lavr Pavlovich Lantratov, having lived almost a century, writes his will.

What does he have left from that old, distant world? A crocodile leather reticule, a barometer by Karl Votkey, a phantasmagoria with glass plates, and his father's cigarette case weighing twenty gold coins.

And behind each of these simple things – a fate.