My new story is about virgin lands. This is not a documentary work. The names and surnames of the heroes of the story, the names of all settlements, except for Kustanay, the regional center, which in 1957 received a huge number of enthusiasts for the development of virgin and fallow lands, have been changed. Most of them came on Komsomol vouchers. They lived in tents for a short time, built good settlements for themselves, which became virgin lands. Much has been written about the development of virgin lands. That’s why I didn’t write what everyone already knows without me. My story is the realities of the “bottom” of just a few virgin settlements. This “lower class,” ordinary hard workers, worked and existed completely differently from what was customary at that time to be written in the press and shown in films. What I observed and described is not the ultimate truth. Perhaps somewhere things were different. But what I’m writing about happened exactly like that and almost nothing had to be invented.