The Gulls

Elza lives in a small town in the Republic of Kalmykia on the Caspian Sea Another year comes to an end its cold and the steppe is covered in a thin layer of snow When her husband who makes a living from illegal fishing asks her one night what she did during the day she lies She wasnt at her mothers but at the bus stop She thought of leaving to find out what it might be to escape the infinite expanse of her dreary small world But she didnt dare instead she stays and withdraws into herself unconcerned by who might see One day her husband doesnt return from a dangerous boat trip It is said that a fisherman only returns if he has a woman waiting for him and that seagulls are the souls of the missing At the start of a somewhat unplanned pregnancy widowed and alone Elza wanders ever further through the city plotting a path between tradition and the contemporary until shes no longer on familiar ground