Ant in a Glass Jar

"My truth, — writes the author of the book Polina Zherebtsova, — is the truth of a peaceful citizen, an observer, a historian, a journalist, a person who has been recording events by hours and dates since the age of nine, a documentary writer."
Polina Zherebtsova was born in 1985 in the city of Grozny and lived there until she was almost twenty. In 1994, she began keeping diaries in which she recorded what was happening around her. The diaries cover Polina's childhood, adolescence, and youth, during which the Chechen wars took place. School, first love, quarrels with parents — things familiar to any teenager — coexisted with bombings, hunger, devastation, and poverty.