No matter what you cannot change human nature exclaims a soldier in the final story of this collection even under socialism. Apricot Jam & Other Stories presents a series of astonishing portraits of Russian life before during & after Soviet rule. In The New Generation a professor promotes a student purely out of good will. Years later the same professor finds himself arrested & in a striking twist of fate his student becomes his interrogator. In Nastenka two young women with the same name lead routine ordered lives
- until the Revolution exacts radical change on them both. With an unforgettable cast of displaced family members military commanders & imprisoned activists these stories play out the moral dilemmas & ideological conflicts that defined Russia in the twentieth century.