Maria Danilova’s "Twenty-Sixth," a summary Automatic translate

"Twenty-Sixth" is a novel of short stories about the childhoods of five Moscow schoolchildren, set in 2025. It intertwines individual family tragedies with the collapse of the Soviet state: from the era of total shortages to the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev. The route of Moscow tram number twenty-six symbolically connects the characters’ lives.

The Magic Tree and Urology

Little Grisha Shkolnik is grieving the death of his beloved dog, Mozart. The boy withdraws into himself, avoids his peers, and finds solace in reading. His mother, Zhenya, tired of proofreading party brochures at the publishing house, concocts a fairy tale about a magical tree and secretly hides scarce bananas, which she’s spent standing in a long line in the freezing cold, under a maple tree by the pond. Grisha, overjoyed, finds a bunch of bananas, but on tram number 26, he methodically hands them out to strangers, sacrificing the treat for the smiles of strangers.

Masha Molchanova is admitted to the Institute of Pediatrics with a neurogenic bladder — her bedwetting developed as a result of stress, the result of her parents’ divorce and the bullying of her kindergarten teacher, Nina Petrovna. In the urology department, she encounters the cruelty of nurse Valya, who forces the children to swallow bitter pills. Masha persuades her wardmate, Asya Averbakh, to commit sabotage: early in the morning, the girls steal medications from a cart and hide them in the pantry. The rebellion fails, but the girls become friends. Masha is soon discharged. She goes with her parents to the Cheryomushkinsky Market to buy grenades, hoping for a family reunion, but at the tram stop, her father boards another car and leaves them forever.

Humanitarian Aid and Roll Call

Asya Averbakh starts first grade and meets the stooped, awkward Natasha Chernykh. The girls become best friends. After the catastrophic earthquake in Spitak, the school announces a collection of warm clothes. Asya decides to give her most prized possession — a foreign sweater with a squeaking Mickey Mouse, sent by relatives in Haifa — to a girl who has suffered in the earthquake. She trusts Natasha to take it to the teachers’ lounge. Natasha takes the sweater for herself, passionately desiring beautiful clothes, but, overcome with guilt, hides it and then throws it in the trash in a nearby yard.

Grisha Shkolnik’s parents spend all weekend baking sour cream cakes for the cooperative cafe to save up for a car. His father, Andrei, regularly attends roll call for the line to buy an ochre-colored Zhiguli. Grisha is haunted by the smell of baked goods, which are being sold to strangers. On the day of rationing, it turns out that the district committee has merged their lists with an alternative line, led by the father of Grisha’s classmate, Oleg Abrikosov. The Shkolnik family receives no rationing. Seeking solace, the parents and their son go for a walk around Moscow and accidentally stumble upon a thousands-strong democratic rally in Luzhniki.

Blueberries and Windows

Masha and her mother, Lena, are vacationing at an academic camp in Latvia, where the vacationers are forming their own council of ministers and picking blueberries en masse. Masha falls in love for the first time with seventeen-year-old Mitya, the son of her intelligent neighbor, Yuri. However, Masha’s mother begins an affair with a loud married man, Ilya, rejecting Yuri’s timid advances. At a farewell concert, Masha sings a song in English with Mitya, but that evening she notices him in the arms of Ilya’s daughter. Masha is deeply distressed by the collapse of her hopes.

Asya Averbakh’s family is preparing to emigrate. Her grandfather, to whom Asya is deeply attached, flatly refuses to leave his homeland or abandon his late wife’s grave. A younger brother, Mark, is born into the family. Asya is jealous of her grandfather’s love for the baby, but the old man plants a new raspberry patch at his dacha specifically for his granddaughter. Asya’s mother is denied permission to emigrate due to her husband’s supposed secrecy, but the family is later granted permission. Asya bids her grandfather a tearful farewell, promising to always love him.

Spoons and Installation

Natasha Chernykh is present at the Averbakhs’ packing. At customs at Sheremetyevo Airport, a stern inspector forbids the export of antique silver spoons. Asya’s mother asks Natasha to give the relic to her grandfather, but the girl, unwilling to say goodbye to her friend, discreetly slips the spoons back into the pocket of Aunt Toma’s sheepskin coat. Asya flies away, and Natasha returns to the cramped room of the factory communal apartment with her exhausted mother, a doctor, and her alcoholic neighbor, Gennady Petrovich.

Oleg Abrikosov grows up a sickly child, overprotected by his mother, Tatyana. His father, Vitaly, enriches himself at a scientific and technical center by cashing in fictitious salaries. At Oleg’s birthday party, under the hypnotic influence of Anatoly Kashpirovsky, the boy hides under the table and sees his father caressing the knee of his mother’s friend, Lida. Soon, Vitaly packs his suitcase and leaves the family for Lida. Tatyana falls into a severe depression. During the August 1991 coup, Oleg is forced to forage for food on his own. In a supermarket, the boy crawls across the floor through an angry crowd and wins back a jar of Hungarian plum compote. This act helps his mother recover and find a job as a secretary/assistant.

Allegro, Bush’s Legs and Field of Miracles

Grisha Shkolnik hates music school, where his authoritarian teacher, Olimpiada Viktorovna, puts pressure on him and forces him to learn sonatinas. Oleg Abrikosov, who has a rare wrist, is also tormented with the violin at his father’s insistence. During an important New Year’s concert for the French delegation, the boys conspire to sneak backstage and skate down an ice slide on a violin case. His mother intercedes for Grisha with his grandmother and allows him to quit music.

Masha Molchanova’s grandmother, Anya, who is ill with cancer from Saratov, moves to Moscow to live with her. Her illness is rapidly progressing. Looking for chicken for broth, Masha stands in a long line for imported chicken legs. She’s short on money, but Asya’s lonely grandfather, who has left, supplements the shortfall. On her way home, three hooligans attack Masha in a dark park and try to steal her schoolbag. The girl fiercely fights back, biting through the attacker’s arm. At home, she learns that her grandmother has died.

Natasha Chernykh fanatically watches the television program and dreams of a better life. The class is inducted into the Young Pioneers at the Lenin Museum. The ceremony disappoints Natasha with its bureaucratic formality and the indifference of the organizers. On Red Square, Natasha gives an interview to a television journalist, whom she recognizes as Grisha Shkolnik’s mother, and frankly recounts the unbearable living conditions in her communal apartment with an alcoholic neighbor whose corpse lay in the room for two days. The story is broadcast on the news. Local officials, fearing a scandal, immediately issue Natasha’s mother a warrant for a new, separate apartment in Yasenevo. Natasha receives a letter from Asya in the United States and a pink Mickey Mouse sweater.

It’s time

In late December 1991, Natasha’s mother, district pediatrician Marina Yuryevna, is making her rounds at her old clinic before transferring to a new one. She visits the ailing Grisha Shkolnik, whose mother now works for a democratic newspaper and has fled to the editorial office. Then the doctor visits Oleg Abrikosov, who has developed an allergic rash from eating co-op choux pastries, and learns that his mother has learned to drive. The final call is to Masha Molchanova, who was poisoned by those same pastries. Her mother, Lena, is pregnant by her new husband, Alexei. After examining the children and giving instructions, Marina leaves. That evening, Mikhail Gorbachev’s resignation address is broadcast on television. The Soviet Union ceases to exist, and the grown-up heroes enter a new era.