Michael Springford

Journey to Zilair Michael Springford

Nine fictional stories, set in Russia, tell of the lives of ordinary men and women in the turbulent years after the 1917 Russian revolution. A parcel from Moscow that eludes the secret police, is discovered to be a love letter without words; a man returns from exile in Siberia and settles a debt; a little girl loses the love of her life - a Caucasian sheepdog; the murdered Tzar's daughter, Anastasia, is disturbingly reborn; an old man who experienced the revolution, communism, purges, poverty and war, finds solace in his much-thumbed copy of Candide, and in feeding pigeons; an oligarch's party ends in violence; following an accidental, encounter online, a woman becomes an artist's muse; an impromptu arm-wrestling match disrupts a Siberian Christmas; and a country boy finds courage in a spectacular act of folly on the centenary of the revolution - October 2017.