"Yasha, Is This What You Wanted?" by Dina Rubina, summary

This book is a kaleidoscope of human destinies, published in 2021. The characters’ lives are intertwined with motifs of memory, chance and fateful encounters, and survival in the harsh conditions of the Soviet era. The events span different decades and remote cities.

The book’s story about the criminal Lyubka was successfully adapted into a film in 2009 by director Stanislav Mitin. The film received acclaim for its accurate portrayal of the complex historical atmosphere.

Early years and creative paths

An elderly woman, sculptor Evgenia Leonidovna, recalls her childhood in Penza, her millionaire grandfather, and her uncle Yasha. Her grandfather often reproached his uncle with the question, "Yasha, is this what you wanted?" when the family was deprived of their property. Yasha was later arrested. Evgenia describes fleeing with her father to Crimea to live with her ailing mother, Sasha, wanderings, and hunger. Returning to Moscow, she studied sculpture with her stepfather, Mendelevich, and Professor Matveyev. Her mentor advised her to go to the porcelain factory in Dulyovo.

There, Evgenia found her true calling. A true calling that makes the artist endure the heat of the kilns. Pieces are fired in muffle kilns — special heating chambers — at a temperature of 1400 degrees Celsius. The artist acknowledged porcelain as her greatest passion and found boundless creative freedom.

In the fall of 1951, in an Asian town near a metallurgical plant, a young doctor named Irina Mikhailovna loses her mother and is left alone with her young daughter, Sonya. She hires Lyubka, recently released from prison, as a nanny. Lyubka proves to be an excellent assistant. She takes charge of the household and fiercely defends Irina from the attacks of her neighbor, Kondakova.

In winter, a campaign against doctors begins. Against this backdrop, Irina becomes deeply terrified of possible reprisals because of her Jewish surname. She’s frightened, but Lyubka fiercely supports her mistress, thwarting any denunciations. Soon, the nanny puts on a smart dress and leaves. The police report that the fugitive was the leader of a gang and, together with accomplices, robbed the Opera and Ballet Theater in Tashkent. Years later, Irina receives a greeting card from her with no return address.

The biography of the narrator’s mother, Gita Alexandrovna Maisel, is filled with unexpected decisions. The heroine’s ancestors came from the Siberian settlement of Barguzin. Gita secretly runs away from home to Irkutsk and studies to become a doctor. She works for three years in Tuva, treating local residents, and then moves to Vladivostok. Gita becomes a renowned venereologist and socialite.

Wanting to have a child, the doctor chooses a healthy Estonian navigator as the biological father. Soon, Gita falls in love with the young Rear Admiral Boris Korsak. She deceives Boris, claiming the pregnancy is the result of their recent affair. The resulting child turns out to be an exact replica of the Estonian. Boris immediately breaks off the relationship. Gita is left alone, working long hours and raising her daughter with strict discipline.

Trials of war and memory

A puppet theater prop designer recalls her grandmothers’ stories about the siege of Leningrad. Grandma Tanya donated blood for bread rations. One time, she went to a false address to pick up a package and miraculously escaped cannibals by jumping out a window. Another time, unprovoked laughter forced the girls to leave the building entrance moments before a bomb fell.

Neighbors tested meat bought at the market on Churchill, a surviving fox terrier, but the dog flatly refused to eat human flesh. Great-grandmother Liza, emaciated by hunger, smashed an antique mirror with a stick, horrified by her emaciated reflection. There’s also the story of a girl named Lucy, who recognized a beautiful woman by the scent of "Red Moscow" perfume that lingered over the ruins of a bombed-out house.

In a letter from Poltava, a daughter describes her mother’s life. At three years old, the girl and her older sister escaped starvation by walking along railroad ties to Kremenchuk. The sisters were picked up by a nurse at an orphanage and fed hot pea soup. This food became a symbol of salvation for the child.

During the war, the director evacuated the orphanage to the Urals, where the teenagers worked in a military factory. After the war, the girl found work in a cafeteria in Ulan-Ude. On a frosty morning, she fed a frozen military pilot who asked for soup. The pilot soon became her husband.

An elderly woman named Miriam, whom the narrator gives a ride, shares her story in a Georgian restaurant in Jerusalem. She and her lover, Adam, were in the Grodno ghetto. Adam escaped through a tunnel to join the partisans. Miriam’s family was executed by the Nazis. She escaped from the mass grave, hid in a barn under a huge boar, and was later given shelter by peasants.

For two years, the refugee hid in a hole dug under the floor. Fearing a search, her owners abandoned the emaciated Miriam at the gates of a prisoner-of-war camp. There, a captured American doctor nursed her back to health. She married him and moved to the United States. Thirty years later, Miriam met Adam by chance at a scientific congress in San Francisco. They married and lived together for many years.

Moscow and Odessa courtyards

Memories of Moscow’s Topolev Lane, demolished in 1972, are connected to Sonya’s life in the professor’s house. The girl grows up with her older brother, Lenya, a passionate entomologist. She describes her colorful neighbors. Librarian Zinaida Alekseyevna is torn between two husbands. The alcoholic circus performers, Valya and Nora, cause noisy rows.

The brilliant boy Kolya knew several languages, but ended his life in a psychiatric hospital. The hunchback Spiridon Samsonovich frightened Sonya with his friendly kisses. The alley disappears, leaving behind memories of empty abandoned houses, courtyard concerts, and floating poplar fluff.

The story of the Odessa family of musician Gavrila Etinger is filled with tragic twists. His son Yasha gets involved with anarchists, runs away from home, becomes a security officer, and an ally of Yakov Blumkin. His daughter Esther demonstrates a phenomenal talent for piano. Her father takes her to an audition with the renowned professor Vinarsky, who is touring in Odessa.

Esther brilliantly performs Beethoven’s works and receives an invitation to study in Austria. The family moves to Vienna. In Vienna, their success is cut short by the death of Dora’s mother in a café from a brain tumor. Returning to Odessa, Esther works as a pianist in an illusion theater, playing the piano and dubbing silent films.

Yasha’s messenger, Nikolai Kablukov, takes rare antique books from the house. Esther falls in love with Nikolai, but catches him with the servant Stesha. The insulted pianist breaks off relations with Kablukov forever.

During the Great Patriotic War, Esther performed in front-line brigades alongside the spirited dancer Leonor. Leonor’s husband committed suicide, and Leonor herself died during a German air raid, covering Esther with her body.

After the war, the pianist returned to Odessa. There, she learned that Gavrila Oskarovich had died in a psychiatric hospital. Stesha had kept the apartment. The servants had a growing daughter, Irusya, born either to Gavrila or to Yasha, who had secretly visited them.

Family Traditions and Mentors

The narrator recalls her grandmother, Rakhil Koganovskaya. In her youth, Rakhil was beautiful and artistic, brilliant at impersonating her neighbors and shining at banquets. During the war, the family evacuated to Tashkent and settled in an adobe house. Grandfather Sander lost both legs after being hit by a tram, but continued to work as a meat cutter.

Grandmother was known for her stubborn, difficult nature. Despite this, Rachel steadfastly carried the burden of household chores. She told her granddaughter stories of everyday life, cooked meager meals on the veranda, and fearlessly lit the stove with her bare hands. She lived to be ninety-five, retaining her sharp wit and wit.

A casual acquaintance in a Munich beer hall recounts an episode from his childhood. During the Nazi era, his father secretly hid his first wife, Esther, in the basement, concealing her origins. A boy named Wilbert brought her food. Esther was an artist, but she was unemployed. Wilbert began stealing gold paint from the local church for her.

The artist painted nature scenes on thick packing paper. After the Soviet troops arrived, Esther left the basement and supported her family with her ration cards. Having become famous, the artist never again used gold. Wilbert refused to sell her basement works to museum experts.

Eight-year-old Staszek is learning to play the English horn — an ancient wind instrument of the oboe family — from his veteran music teacher, Vera Samoylovna Badaat. The schoolchildren nicknamed her "Baobab." She previously served twenty years in a penal camp for her historical research on Napoleon’s campaigns.

Upon her release, Vera came to Vyazniki station, organized a school orchestra, and took from her relatives a unique case containing Napoleonic army wind instruments. The old woman instilled in Stashek a taste for classical music, foreign literature, and European history. She told the boy about battles, French marshals, and ancient music masters.

Vera Samoilovna collapses during a concert at Fatyanovskaya Polyana and dies soon after in the hospital. The teacher leaves Stashek her antique instruments and her savings. The young man plans to enroll in medical school in Leningrad, but he cherishes the memory of his stern mentor and her lessons.