Leningrad. 1946 The famous Soviet conductor and composer Yuri Borisovich Gorelik was sentenced to eight years in prison on a ridiculous and far-fetched charge of espionage. Shortly thereafter, his wife Tatiya Georgievna Mikeladze was arrested as a member of the family of a traitor to the Motherland, and the children, Nino and Ioska, were sent to an orphanage. After the verdict, Tatyana Georgievna ended up in the Akmola camp for the wives of traitors to the Motherland, or, as the prisoners themselves called it, "ALZHIR", located in the Kazakh steppe in a village near Akmolinsk. Five years later, having been released with a "wolf ticket", she remains in the village to wait for her husband and look for children, whose fate she knows nothing about ... The book is narrated on behalf of a Kazakh boy, whose family sheltered a woman who was released from prison ...

What is the "Algerian Notebook"? This is a poignant, deep and at the same time very bright story about true friendship, fidelity and first love. The author created a unique historical canvas, woven from historical facts and human destinies, which, intertwined, recreate the picture of that tragic and heroic era.

The illustrations for the book were made by Lyudmila Pipchenko, subtly and accurately embodying the characters and the spirit of that time .