Valentin Pikul - Hard labor. Gift book bound in leather

"Hard labor"

Charming swindler Polynov-the main character of the novel wins attention immediately and never ceases to amaze with his talents and abilities throughout the novel.

Fate brings him to the Sakhalin penal servitude during the period of aggravation of Russian-Japanese relations, and then the war. Life on the island is already difficult, it becomes simply unbearable: the center of Russia is somewhere far away, does not want to see the problem or does not want to, and for the Japanese, the island is a tasty morsel, which they intended to tear away from Russia for a very long time.

"- Don't be a disgrace! They shouted. "Death is better.".. After shooting all the bullets, people went to the edge of the cliff and, with a parting glance at the clear sky, rushed down. So the whole platoon died. From the first to the last person. None of them gave up... Russian courage stunned the enemy. They stood frozen for a long time. They were silent! Then the Japanese officer, holstering his revolver, went to the cliff above the chasm and looked down, where the bodies of the Russian soldiers were sprawled, and between them, already dead, the barrels of rifles and links of shackles glittered. "Learn to die," he told his soldiers.»