How was it possible that an entire country could live in mute fear? Why did Soviet intellectuals denounce each other and conspire with the authorities to brainwash ordinary people? Why did submarines sink and nuclear power stations explode in the Soviet Union? This collection contains stories by leading Russian writers Ludmila Petrushevskaya, Boris Yampolsky, Alexander Pokrovsky, Vladimir Kuzemko, Ilya Zverev. They attempt to explain the idiosyncrasies of Russian society by bringing to life experiences such as the vicious competition over private apartments, the ever-present threat of the GULAG, the precarious world of the Soviet atomic submarine, the Chernobyl disaster and its consequences, and the bizarre justice of the Soviet legal system.