: 1933 year. An orphan boy from a village located on the Yenisei is experiencing the most hungry winter in his life. Good luck to his family brings a puppy saved from a fierce death in a snowdrift.
In 1933, the village where the boy Vitya lived "was crushed by hunger." There were no pigeons, the dogs and the noisy gangs of boys fell silent. They got their livelihood as anyone knew how. The hunters looked for the beast in the taiga, but he went far into the forest, away from hunger. With the prey, only the most skilled hunters returned and divided the meat into the whole village. People were drawn to the city, renting “junk and gold” to “Torgsin”.
Viti's family was led by a grandmother, dodgy in the household and entrepreneurial in business. She called her household members - Vitya, grandfather and son Kolchu Jr. - “men”. Soon another "man" joined them, Alyoshka - Viti's cousin. Alyoshka’s mother, Augusta’s aunt, from logging switched to work at the Ust-Mansky alloy site, where they promised to give rations to her. It soon turned out that the promised rations would not feed the family, and the entrance went to the contents of an old grandmother's chest. After a while, of all the wealth in the house, there was only an old Singer sewing machine that no one wanted to buy. The family began to eat potato peelings, chaff and other rubbish.
Vitya was a weak child who had fever and rheumatism. Soon his legs completely stopped holding him. When the boy nearly died, having eaten frozen potatoes, the grandmother could not stand it and decided to part with the golden earrings - the only memory of Vitina’s mother, who drowned about a year ago. Koltsa Jr. was entrusted to take the catkins to Torgsin. He controlled the boat in which his sister was sailing, so he blamed himself for her death, and tried to spoil the orphan more often.
Having brought from the city a pood of flour, a bottle of hemp oil and some money, Kolcha Jr. went to work in rich villages located in the upper Yenisei, and my grandfather got into the village council to cut firewood. Soon the food ran out again. Having taken the money earned by the grandfather weakened from hunger, the grandmother went to the city and brought a huge loaf. The bread turned out to be “fake": under the ruddy crust an inedible filling of chaff was found. Grandmother voted for a long time and wailed, and then she pulled out a little puppy from her bosom - they threw him out to die in the cold.
The puppy, called the Ball, brought good luck. That same evening, Kolcha Jr. returned with money and gifts, and her grandmother managed to hold out until spring. The sewing machine, however, had to be sold in order to buy a bag of potatoes for sowing. In the spring, Kolcha Jr. got married a second time. Together with his wife, laughing Nyura, he worked on the seed, for which they were given a little life. Grandmother's cow safely got hotels. Alyoshka was taken by her mother, who went to the drummers. Now, from her increased rations, the grandmother's "peasants" also fell.
Grandma was in constant confrontation with Sharik - the puppy got into the habit of drinking cat milk, peeing on a broom and chasing chickens. However, despite the Sharikov leprosy, his grandmother always called him the guardian angel of her family.
