Boris Bedrosov

A dying actor asks a doctor to help him commit suicide in return for a masterpiece.

Set in a remote and bleak border post during the 1970s cold war between China and Russia, this is a study of boredom and a gradual thawing of relations between opposing guards which leads to a bizarre border incident.

Svetlanais a woman of indeterminate age who arrived in Minnesota from the former Soviet Union as a mail-order bride.