To Whom Shall I Tell My Sorrow?

Original · Кому повем печаль мою?

This cartoon is about the sad fate of a little boy who has neither a mother nor a father, only a grandfather. He used to live with his grandfather in the countryside, but when things got really bad, his grandfather sent him to work in the house of a wealthy Moscow man. However, the masters didn't care that he was still very young, and they put him to work that was too much for him, and they didn't let him eat, and they scolded and beat him. He was often sent to buy vodka, where he would see the city life, the different people, the big houses, the beautiful horses, and the indifference and cruelty of the people. One day, unable to bear the hardships of his life, he wrote a letter to his grandfather, asking him to take him away before he died, and on the envelope he wrote, "To the village, to my grandfather."