The first volume of the Collected Works of our contemporary, Russian writer V.P. Astafiev - he comes from the Siberian village of Ovsyanka, lives and works in Krasnoyarsk - includes his earliest works, written by him in 1951-1959 in the Urals, in the town of Chusovoy, where fate led him after the war. Here yesterday’s front-line soldier, a young wounded soldier, began to “try himself on” to civilian life, here he began as a writer, calling his first story “Civilian.” The first stories for children and the novel “The Snows Are Melting” were written here. V. P. Astafiev himself comments on his works in the introductory article and notes.