They were not. Book 1. Gentlemen, volunteers. Vasiliev B. L.

1870s. In a large, friendly and noble, albeit poor, noble family of the Oleksins, six brothers and sisters grow up - Varya, Gabriel, Vasily, Fedor, Masha, Ivan and Volodya. One by one they leave the parent nest - and where will they bring their choice of an adult path? Will their sincerity and youthful idealism, openness and unbending ideas about honor and decency can be able to resist the difficulties, sorrows and disappointments, and even the deadly dangers that they will survive more than once?.. “Gentlemen of the volunteers” is a wonderful novel by Boris Vasiliev, who can be read and as part of his fascinating dilogy “were and not”, and as a completely separate work with a sharp plot and bright, memorable characters.