Aureliu Busuiok

At the heart of the story is a rural schoolteacher who, in 1944, leaves his native Bessarabia as the Red Army advances with heavy fighting. The gentle, cultured Sebastian Radu has every reason to avoid meeting the so-called liberators. And not just because one of the new regime’s first measures will be a background check, and Radu will have to write “noble” in the “social origin” field. The point is, our protagonist already has some experience dealing with representatives of the “new world.”

They are rural teachers, people of inquisitive thought and high moral duty. It is not easy for them, because they have no right to make mistakes, the younger generation looks up to them, fellow villagers look up to them.

A journalism student Kostik is travelling, by river steamer, to the place of his internship in the village of Lower Lazureny, but by mistake he goes ashore at Upper Lazureny. While Kostika is trying to get out of the village and get to his destination, wonderful adventures happen.