[On one of his comrades depicted in the book:]'Sasha was my friend … Like me, he was 19. But he didn't come home. He was killed 12 hours after this photo was taken.

"When I came home, I was asked to put my pictures in a photo exhibit at the Cinematography College ... My pictures won first prize. I began to ask myself what I was doing, and why. A few months after the exhibit, I dropped out of college, left my wife and began to write this book."

Vladislav Tamarov