
A cycle of Ukrainian tales where village life is entwined with folk demons, witches and devils, told with warmth and sly humour.

A young seminarian is left to read prayers over a dead girl for three nights in an empty church, and the nights do not go quietly.

The diary of a petty Petersburg clerk whose grievances and daydreams slowly slip loose from reality.

A young painter buys an old portrait with strangely living eyes, and the easy money it brings begins to ruin his real talent.

A humble copying clerk saves for a new overcoat, and this small dream becomes the whole meaning of his life.

A smooth-talking traveller rides across provincial Russia buying up dead serfs who still count as living on paper - a poem about the whole country.