When a Soviet state official attempts to coerce a celebrated poet into apologizing for a political joke he made, the official gets a taste of his own predatory medicine at the hand of the poet's vengeful wife.

A young would-be poet develops a complicated relationship with the most famous living Bosnian poet at the time. This relationship ends decades later on another continent when that poet dies, and the young man finds a life of his own that doesn't involve poetry.

In 1990s Leningrad, a Russian man prepares to emigrate, but things don't quite go as planned—twists of fate, complex friendships, and the omnipresent KGB stand in his way.

As conflict rages between Russia and Ukraine, a woman struggles to get through to her friend caught in the middle of it.

In an fantastical Russia, a flower shop owner thinks he recognizes a strange woman on the street—and almost loses everything trying to remember who she is.

In Bulgaria, two men who met online play submissive and dominant roles in an innitially-consensual sexual encounter that turns into a violent assault.

An American college student who studies Russian history heads to St. Petersburg at the the end of the Cold War and becomes attracted to her roommate's boyfriend, a former soldier. His stories, along with her interactions with other college students, add to her experience of a tentative social environment in post-war Russia.

An American writer travels to Sophia where he meets a famous poetess. He falls in love with her and her attitude.

A Russian man recalls the first time he fell in love.

A Russian girl looks forward to occasional visits by her mother's best friend. When the friend soon plans to visit with her new deaf and blind lover, feelings of scandal, anxiety, and curiosity emerge in the girl's family.