Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital has never been translated into English, despite the fact that it is one of Russians' most beloved books. Gilyarovsky's self-described "chronicle" is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin.
After Russian shells pounded the industrial area next to their home, setting fire to an oil depot in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, Yuri Mosolov and his wife decided it was time to leave.