Town of Glory
Most of the 10 000 inhabitants of Yelnya feel nostalgic about the former USSR and its army. They’re raising the town’s children to be military trained national patriots. Yelnya misses the days when things were different, when society was stable, even when that meant living under strict rules. Svetlana, an ex-military, lost her job when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, ruining all her plans and dreams. The army has increasingly become her ‘island of stability’ in the turbulent and changing environment of Russia since the collapse.
