The story was published in issue 6(23) of the magazine “Foma” for 2004. In literature, the tradition of a Christmas story has long been established. In an effort to elevate the human soul and illuminate the image of God in it, different authors, however, wrote and write in different styles and use different artistic techniques. In this issue we offer the reader two very different stories. One of them is made in a modern, “hard” manner - “Learning with a Star”, the other is emphatically soft, “homey”. But despite all the differences in methods, both authors, in essence, call for the same thing.

Vitaly KAPLAN

Three Moscow bandits, Kostyl, Repey and Shuryak, decided to give the sucker a lift to Preobrazhenka. The fellow traveler turned out to be a school physics teacher.