Letters from Siberia

Lin Jian always thought that Russia was a boring name in geography books and a biting cold wind in textbooks. Until she ran into the arms of Alexander Petrenko on that snowy night in St. Petersburg. He is a mixed-race Russian teaching assistant with messy blond hair and a pair of blue eyes that see through the world but are filled with stars. He was as pungent and direct as vodka, would frown at her squeamishness about grammar in class, and would wrap his old coat around her without saying a word on blizzard nights. From the literary cafes on Nevsky Prospekt to the roar of the ice cracking on Lake Baikal, Lin Jian understood the Russian "all or nothing" in this vast land. It turns out that beneath the hardest glacier lies the hottest warmth; after the longest cold winter lies the gentlest letter to your sweetheart.