A Photograph in Which I Am Not

A photographer arrives at the village school. This event is incredible: nothing like this has ever happened. The photographer was settled in the best hut, the children were groomed, everything was clean and prepared, but one of the kids had been playing in a snow quarry with a friend the day before, and he hurt himself so badly that he couldn't walk. His grandmother couldn't carry him in her arms. This story is real from the life of Viktor Astafyev himself, weaving his difficult fate into the biography of the great Motherland.