The Pit

What lies behind the walls of a brothel? Some have come here out of desperation, others were sold like living goods. In the novella "The Pit," Alexander Kuprin (1870–1938) describes the life of prostitutes without judgment or moralizing – he is an observer capturing the grim truth of life "at the bottom."
Through the fates of the heroines – Lyubka, Tamara, Zhenka – he shows how difficult it is to escape from a closed circle. "The Pit" is not just a story about a bordello, but a powerful social statement about prostitution, the helplessness of women, and the indifference of society.
The novella is based on materials collected by Kuprin in the 1890s in Kyiv, however, according to the author, "The Pit" is also Odessa, St. Petersburg, and any other city.