Gorod Zero (Zero City)

Although stories of the absurd can, in principle, take place anywhere, 'Zero City' is a national phenomenon for us. lts daily life, its inhabitants and their way of life do not basically represent anything that differs from the usual humdrum daily round of our society. It is, however, very different for the links of causality that are at the root of this way of Iife. It is precisely these links that, if examined closely, prove to be lacking in any sense. Varakin's part in the events that have upset the whole city is nothing else than the fortuitous possibility of looking clearly into the abnormal system of human relationships, in a life to which we are so accustomed that it is considered to be perfectly normal. But ifit is so, this habit quickly changes any extraordinary situation into something both inevitable and logica!. In this system of values, the sense of history is lost, whether it is recent or lost in time... (Karen Chakhnazarov)