Изумруды и рубины осыпаются дождем

Emeralds and rubies rain down

Tales of Bazhov. After all, you would never guess that they were written in such a dark time for Russian history - the 30s of the twentieth century. Bright, shimmering with the shine of precious stones, breathing the richness of the mountain region - they seem to have come to us from the depths of centuries, well, at the latest - the nineteenth century, right?
But no! It's an illusion. They were written almost on instructions from the party. It was assumed that Bazhov was supposed to collect folklore and through it glorify the abundance of the now Soviet lands and the talents of the common people. But it turned out differently: Bazhov really collected folklore, but fairy tales have little in common with him. These are independent, original works, which is why the writer had a lot of problems, including with censorship. He generally had a difficult relationship with the Soviet government, he was either expelled from the party, then accepted back, then he fell into disgrace and was left without work, then life somehow got better and he was again in good standing. His life is full of contradictions: he was born into a working-class family, but studied at a theological seminary; from a young age he was a revolutionary, but a Socialist-Revolutionary, which, of course, the Bolsheviks later reminded him of.
In total, Pavel Bazhov wrote more than fifty tales. Among them there are undisputed stars included in all collections: “The Malachite Box”, “The Silver Hoof”, “The Stone Flower”, “The Mistress of the Copper Mountain”... And there are less successful and less well-known fairy tales. Find a collection that contains all 56 tales are probably unrealistic, so you need to look at the table of contents and choose the most important ones for yourself.

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