Shavkat Abdusalamov

As an adviser to the emperor Nicholas II, mystic Grigori Rasputin holds great influence over the empire. However, many in St Petersburg begin to regard Rasputin, with his strange practices and mesmerizing qualities, as a liability and plot his assassination. When Rasputin, known to many as the 'Mad Monk', leads Nicholas to embrace an ill-conceived military strategy, a group of determined conspirators set down a plan to eliminate him.

Two men and a woman happen to meet in a bar. We learn from their conversations both the intriguing and banal details of their lives. But is anyone really telling the truth?

Three women’s lives intersect in a small town in Uzbekistan following the Second World War. The first, an old woman trapped in a forced marriage; the second, a schoolteacher intent on imposing progress on the remote region; the third, a young woman determined to build her own house without her husband’s or the state’s approval.

The setting is Central Asia during the Russian civil war. In the post-revolutionary twenties, when the power in European Russia was (officially) "fully in the hands of the workers and peasants", but the fight against the Basmachi rebels was in full swing. When a Red Army detachment captures Sultan Mazar, the brains behind the Bazmachi contingent, a decision is made to escort urgently the prisoner to the Bukhara province. The difficult mission is entrusted to a grizzled mountain trapper and conscientious revolutionary called Mirzo. His expertise is essential to traverse the precarious paths and steep mountain ridges along the way, impossible terrain for the inexperienced. A group consisting of Mirzo, his brother Kova, the Sultan, his daughter Zaranghis and slave Saifulla set off on this journey. They are forced to fight on the mountain ridges as well as negotiate the natural dangers and harsh elements.

The family of the director of the state farm lives in a small Uzbek village. One day, the nephew of the mother, Sanjar, appears in this hospitable family. The kind and impressionable Sappho, observing his cousin's connections with a thieving company, draws unpleasant conclusions for himself and makes completely independent decisions...