1946, a poverty-stricken village, and a hungry winter is ahead. To their misfortune, boys find a book on black magic at an abandoned royal manor....

Leader of a traveling gypsy band from the steppes of Bessarabia (now Moldova), Toma Alistar is a skilled violinist whose fame takes him on tours...

Fourteen years old Anutsa is often forced to stay alone while her father leaves for business trips.

At the heart of the story is a rural schoolteacher who, in 1944, leaves his native Bessarabia as the Red Army advances with heavy fighting. The...

Panoramic life of a Moldovan village in the second half of the twentieth century.