This book provides a real sense of what it was like to live at the ti me when the Soviet Union collapsed. The reader will "step in" and participate in the lives of the characters, realizing the devastating impact Perestroika had on the people of Russia. "Don't be born beautiful, but be born fortunate," the Russian people say, believing that fate exists. On graduation day, a provincial teacher gives her daughter a pair of priceless antique earrings-the only remaining evidence of the family's former nobility-insisting they must be kept for a "black day." As if a spell has been cast, Lena's life...