Oleg Pavlov’s story “The Hiding Place” is about the mysteries of birth and death. The perspective changes: either the reader sees events through the eyes of a jealous girl who discovered that since the birth of her brother it is not she who becomes the center of the family, then her father on the eve of inevitable widowhood. Filled with sad humor, Katya Kapovich’s story “Family” is about an old father who came from Russia to the United States to visit his daughters from different marriages. Daniel Orlov’s story “The Laws of Physics” raises the question to what extent the general laws of nature apply to private life