24 December 1984. While the Western world indulged in the colorful excesses of the 1980s, Russia, especially rural Russia, was bent by the communist regime: the middle class lived in fear, hunger, and abject poverty. Yet Ivan wasn't afraid, not like the others, he thought that sooner or later someone would notice him for his physical fitness: obviously he doesn't train as we might expect, no, in Soviet Russia the ultimate training was a kind of torture in the snow. He was hoping some agent would notice him, sooner or later. No friends, no girls, nothing: in the village they thought he was crazy and that he would end up, sooner or later, shot by the police for some reason. You crossed him in the pinewood that morning.

"Catholic?" He asked, seeing you dragging a small, short pine with fatigue. Then, you raised a brow, thinking the cold and the stress gave you some delusions: "Does he even talk?"; you thought for a second, without responding.