Frau Schram

Moscow, the nineties. A student of the Moscow Literary Institute, Ilya, goes to his native Baku to see his mother and figure himself out. Against the backdrop of political and social upheavals and Ilya's personal crisis, he experiences a romance that becomes a point of no return in his own life.

«Frau Schram» is a story about the past and present, about love and duty, about the bitter romance of «vacation» in a country where the echoes of the empire still linger and new identities are emerging. The voice of this text is exclusively male, straightforward, and surprisingly candid; at the same time, the protagonist keenly feels what is happening and reflects, comparing his own life with the prospective Moscow and retrospective Baku, in the settings where events unfold. The theme of social strata, personal freedom, and choice becomes a metaphor for how people live and change in transformative times.