Yes, I’ve experienced a lot in these last 5 years, since the moment we said goodbye, but all these have gone and there’s no need to remember. Now it’s time to think about my future life, I’m no longer a boy, I’m 24 now, and I don’t have any profession. Dad was right, he said, ‘Boris, learn from me. Once you learn, you’ll never forget it’. But I was young and didn’t understand that all this is necessary.

In some letters I imagine a boy who has just left the school, who loves sweets and is interested in his classmates. In other letters there is a mature adult who had gone through all the terrors of war. Unshakeable faith in victory, humour and optimism resound in his letters. I have read aloud some lines from these letters during commemorative meetings on the anniversary of the Great Patriotic War in the university where I taught.