A backpack, a bear, and eight crates of vodka: a memoir

Part One

The best parades in the whole damn world

The Black Witch come to Kharkov

Oleg and the mirror

Disarming the adversaries

A marked Mikhael will destroy Russia

Something was different; something was in the air

Land of endless twilight

$130, two suitcases, one piece of jewelry, nothing of value

Into the Steppe

Part Two

Dozens of Sentinel Grandmas

Where people have no names

The forester

Waking the nomads

Pennies and peach slices

A layover in purgatory

Eva

A bleak, man-made horizon

Nineteen million in the hole

The Bosnians don't come out at night

A simple request

Part Three

This ain't Ellis Island

Refugee Sponsorship for dummies

Where else does she belong?

Unfinished business, Part I: Getting to America

Where the weak are killed and eaten

There are no cats in America

Where am I and why do I smell like bananas?

Unfinished business, Part II: Staying in America

Alicia

One man, one jacket

Kilcoyne.