Every morning in this northern village began with an amazing, almost forgotten silence that Artyom had missed. There were no humming air conditioners in a stuffy glass-walled office, no howling sirens from a huge city outside the windows, and his phone wasn’t buzzing nonstop with work chats demanding urgent code fixes before a big project release. Here, hundreds of kilometers from the republic’s capital, you could actually hear a squirrel scurrying along the fence, making the pine needles rustle, and below the steep riverbank, the quiet flow of the river’s dark waters.
Artyom settled on the wide porch of the log house, tilting his face up to the dim, autumn sunlight. His work laptop rested in his lap. Big IT companies had long allowed remote work, so his database architect position remained his. His salary still came regularly onto his bank card—except around here, there wasn’t really anywhere to spend it. And he rarely needed to buy anything, anyway.
A familiar creak of the wooden latch sounded from the gate. Polina entered the yard, dressed in a dark green parka, her thick blond braid slung over her shoulder. In her hand was an enamel milk can from the morning’s milking. She carried with her the freshness of cold air, the scent of fresh milk, and a faint trace of dry meadow hay. Seeing her husband, she smiled warmly, just with the corners of her clear gray-blue eyes.
“Still tapping away, Tyoma? Aren’t you worried your computer will start smoking from all this work? I’ve brought fresh cottage cheese—Aunt Nastya sent it to thank you for fixing her well pump.”
Artyom closed his laptop, quickly came down the steps, took the heavy milk can from his wife, and hugged her, pressing his nose to her cool cheek that smelled of frosty air.
“Don’t worry, Pollyushka. I’m done for the day. Now I’m all yours—whether it’s splitting firewood or heading to the river for grayling.”
But at that very moment, the peace was broken by a sharp, completely out-of-place sound of a car horn. A shiny city SUV had stopped behind the gate, kicking up a cloud of gray sandy dust. Soon the doors opened and two unexpected guests stepped out onto the village street. First came Vadim—Artyom’s former team lead and department manager, where Artyom had worked for seven years. Impeccably groomed, in an expensive trendy sweater from a well-known brand, he still clutched his ever-present iPhone in a manicured hand. Following him, stepping daintily over the roadside grass in tall boots, came Snezhana. She had been a designer in the same office, always flawlessly made up, with a doll-like face frozen in a look of discontent at the world around her.
“Heavens above!” Vadim exclaimed theatrically, walking through the gate. “Alive! We had a bet back in the capital—either the bears ate you or you drowned in a swamp with your laptop! Good to see you, hermit!”
Artyom was momentarily taken aback by the unexpected visit, but quickly composed himself and calmly walked toward his former boss, extending his hand.
“Hello, Vadim. What brings you all the way out here?”
“Oh, the forestry digitization project in the district center was shutting down, so I figured I’d make a sixty-kilometer detour and see how our genius is doing out in the sticks,” Vadim replied. He looked around the yard carefully, pausing at the neatly stacked firewood, the old bathhouse near the fence, and finally turned his gaze to Polina. A clear hint of mockery appeared in his eyes. “And, if you don’t mind me asking, is this your famous muse? The legendary scourge of the livestock?”
Polina didn’t look away or seem bothered by the rude comment. She stood tall, hands calmly in her jacket pockets. Her open gaze showed neither fear nor embarrassment before the city guests—just the quiet confidence of an adult who understands people and their ways all too well.
“Polina,” she introduced herself simply, not waiting for her husband to do it. “Please, come inside. You must be hungry after your journey. I’ll put the kettle on.”
“Oh, merci,” Snezhana grimaced as if her teeth suddenly hurt, glancing at the clean wooden walkways. “So… do you even get Wi-Fi here? Or is it all carrier pigeons?”
Artyom just chuckled, smoothing his beard a little.
“Fiber optics right to the front porch, Snezhana. Faster speeds than your office on the riverfront. Please, come in.”
Just half a year ago, when Artyom announced in the work chat that he was leaving the office, marrying a girl from a remote northern village, and moving there for good, his Moscow colleagues burst out laughing. A guy with a 400K salary, the lead developer of complex algorithms, author of a dozen patents—suddenly tossing it all for a country milkmaid! They spun their fingers at their temples, cracked indecent jokes, and guessed wildly. Everyone was confident that his “romance with manure” would end in a month, after which he’d come crawling back, begging to get his job back.
But they had no idea what was really going on with Artyom. They didn’t know how he suffocated among concrete buildings, popped antidepressants by the handful, and woke up at night drenched in cold sweat after yet another panic attack, staring into the drab gray ceiling of his overpriced rental apartment. More and more, his own life felt like an artificial simulation, endlessly rearranging pixels on a screen for someone else’s gain.
Everything changed after one vacation. Artyom pointed randomly at a spot on the republic’s map, packed a backpack, and set off north, toward the start of the taiga. In one of the riverside villages, his car suddenly broke down. A local guy on a tractor helped tow it to the mechanical workshops at the collective farm. That’s where Artyom first saw Polina, stepping out to meet them from the farm’s gate.
She was nothing like the city girls who always struck practiced poses and had lifeless looks in their eyes. In Polina, you could feel a natural strength, an inner purity, and an incredible sense of feminine dignity. Just one look at her left Artyom breathless. She spoke to him simply and openly, without any pretense, served him a hot soup at the canteen, and explained where he could spend the night.
Within a week, Artyom realized he had finally found what he’d been searching for. Real life, the scent of fallen leaves on the land, people who didn’t hide the truth behind fancy words, and this extraordinary woman who, in just a few minutes of conversation, lifted years of sadness from his soul. Three months later, he sold his share in a city startup, bought a sturdy five-walled house on a high riverbank, and proposed to Polina.
Meanwhile, a real standoff was slowly unfolding in the kitchen, even though everything looked perfectly peaceful on the surface.
Polina covered the table with a white linen cloth and set out fluffy potatoes with dill, pickled mushrooms with sour cream, lightly salted grayling shimmering with clear fat, and puffy shangi stuffed with cottage cheese.
Vadim ate with great appetite, even though he tried his best to maintain his usual air of superiority. When his plate was empty, he pushed it aside, leaned back in the carved chair, and started spinning an empty shot glass between his fingers.
“Yeah, the food’s authentic, I can’t argue with that. But tell me, Tyoma, brother to brother, seriously—why do you even need all this? You’re burying your talent out here! Sitting here among cowsheds, going to waste. Maybe you’ll last a year, maybe two. And then what? What will you even talk to her about in the evenings? Milk yields? The latest manure removal methods?”
Snezhana quietly giggled, adjusting her flawless hair at the same time.
Artyom didn’t even get a chance to answer before Polina spoke for him. She didn’t raise her voice or get angry. Calmly sitting across from Vadim, she put her hardworking hands with neatly trimmed nails on the table.
“Vadim, do you really think all we do on the farm is twist cows’ tails? We have a modern robotic complex for six hundred Dutch-bred cows. Milking robots, rumination sensors, electronic tracking for every animal using a Swedish program. And, by the way, Tyoma optimized our server database just last week, because your so-called city experts couldn’t find a controller error for three months, which was making the milk tanks overheat.”
Vadim choked on his tea and stared at Polina, unable to hide his confusion.
“Wait, what do you mean… robots?”
“Literally,” Artem smiled, gazing lovingly at his wife. “Polina is a certified animal engineer. She graduated with honors from the agricultural academy and came back home. She knows more about genetics and biochemistry than half our analytics team does about machine learning. She works as a milker now because there aren’t enough specialists for the new machines, and she insists on feeling every part of the process herself. So, Vadik, you really missed your mark about topics for conversation. Just last night, the two of us argued until midnight about the principles of neural network disease detection in calves.”
Snezhana deliberately twisted her lips, as if what she heard was somehow unpleasant.
“Oh my, how prosaic… Cows, hay, microchips in manure. What about exhibitions? Theater? Restaurants with Michelin-starred chefs? Don’t you ever want, well… just a beautiful life?”
Polina turned her gaze to the window. Outside, the vast northern sky stretched across the river, and the distant taiga shimmered in golden tones.
“A beautiful life is when you wake up and know your purpose. When you can touch the result of your work, when what you do truly helps people — bread on the table, milk in a child’s cup. And as for theater, we’ve got a show outside our window every night that not even the richest director could stage.”
Vadim just smiled crookedly and, this time, chose not to argue. He felt his usual confidence slipping away; his words were no longer making the impact he wanted. The conversation gradually died out. The guests began to gather their things, planning to spend the night at the district center, but things turned out very differently from what they expected.
By evening, a fierce icy wind swept down from the north, mixed with snow—the first real sign that true winter was approaching. Heavy leaden clouds covered the sky, the old larch trees began to rustle, and at exactly nine o’clock, the house was suddenly plunged into darkness.
Almost immediately, Polina’s phone rang with an urgent call. She listened to a short message from the on-duty worker, turned pale instantly, ended the call, and rushed to the coat rack.
“Tyoma! There’s been an accident at the substation, the wires were torn down by the wind. The diesel generator at the complex won’t start—the automatic system is jammed. There are forty calves and just-calved cows in the maternity ward, the temperature is dropping, and worst of all, the ventilation has stopped! If we don’t get power back in an hour, the young ones will suffocate and freeze!”
Artem jumped up, quickly grabbed his warm jacket from the hook and picked up the flashlight.
“I’m going with you. We’ll figure out the starter.”
“Hey, where are you going?!” Vadim’s frightened voice called out from the darkness. “What about us? It’s pitch black, freezing, and the car isn’t even warmed up!”
“Stay here, the stove is keeping the place warm, matches are on the shelf,” Artem called out as he hurried, loudly shutting the heavy door behind him.
A real northern storm was raging outside. Fine snow stung their faces and powerful gusts of wind nearly knocked them down. Artyom started his old but trusty all-wheel-drive SUV. Just ten minutes later, he and Polina were fighting their way through the snowy haze toward the livestock complex on the edge of the village.
The farm was in a state of anxious chaos. In the darkness, cows mooed restlessly, and a frightened elderly security guard rushed between buildings, lighting his way with a handheld flashlight. Inside the concrete building of the backup substation, the air was thick with the smell of diesel and burnt insulation.
Artyom quickly took off his jacket, leaving only his sweater on, and aimed his flashlight beam into the open industrial control cabinet. The controller board was covered with condensation, and one of the power contactors had already started to melt.
“The relay is stuck,” he told Polina succinctly. “The automation system is in a hard lockout. We need to switch to manual start mode, bypassing the digital module, or the diesel generator won’t pick up the load.”
Polina didn’t waste time with extra questions. She quickly found heavy-duty screwdrivers with insulated handles in the tool box, directed the light straight onto her husband’s hands, and began handing him the tools with the precision of a seasoned surgical nurse. There wasn’t the slightest fear in her movements. She acted focused and determined, as if she had shut out everything happening around her.
While Artyom repaired the damaged circuits, cleaned the contacts with sandpaper, and reset the phases, Polina made her way to the maternity section. There, she had to organize the workers, block the ventilation shafts with heat guns, and cover the newborn calves with straw and burlap sacks to keep them warm as best they could.
The forty minutes Artyom spent in the freezing draft seemed endless. His fingers were completely numb, the cold metal burned his skin, but his thoughts stayed clear and focused. He worked faster and with more concentration than during even the most challenging hackathons of his previous life. Now, the price of a mistake wasn’t just a server crash, but the lives of living creatures, the hard work of hundreds of people, and the future of the woman he loved more than anything in the world.
“Polina, step back!” he shouted into the darkness, gripping the heavy power switch tightly.
A heavy click echoed. There was a short pause that felt like an eternity. Suddenly, behind the wall, the deep, growing roar of a powerful diesel engine filled the air. Transformers began to hum, and one by one, bright LED lights flickered to life under the ceiling of the farm complex. Almost simultaneously, the fans kicked in, pushing out the dampness and built-up carbon dioxide from the rooms.
A collective sigh of relief rippled down the rows of stalls.
Artyom left the control room, wiping his soot-stained hands with an old rag. Polina was walking toward him. Her face was streaked with lime dust, a few locks had slipped out from under her hood, but her gray-blue eyes shone with such joy, pride, and gratitude that Artyom felt his whole world turn upside down.
She walked right up to him, not paying any attention to the workers gathered around, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed his wind-chapped lips deeply and passionately.
“Thank you, my love. You saved me. You saved everyone.”
They didn’t make it home until well past midnight. By that time, the emergency crews had already restored power to the village.
It was warm inside the house. Vadim and Snezhana sat quietly on the living room couch, shrinking into themselves, holding mugs of long-cold tea. They watched out the window as car after car sped toward the farm. The distant hum of a diesel engine drifted in. They understood that something important was happening out there in the darkness, something that someone’s life depended on, while they themselves shivered in fear of the usual northern storm.
Vadim looked up as Artyom walked in. He looked tired, his fingers scratched, but he was calm and steady, like a rock that couldn’t be shaken by anything. Then Vadim glanced at Polina, who was gently helping her husband remove his heavy boots and handing him dry woolen socks.
A heavy silence settled in the room.
“So, Vadim?” Artyom asked quietly, with no hint of gloating, as he sat down at the table. “Did you find the answer to your question? Why am I here?”
Vadim slowly lowered his head and stared at the floor. All his usual city polish, sarcasm, and sense of superiority seemed to be gone. It all crumbled away like old, dry plaster. For the first time, he painfully realized just how helpless he was, and how fake his supposedly successful life had been—behind all that shine, there was only emptiness and a constant fear that someone would see his weakness.
“I did, Tyoma,” he said quietly, barely audible. “Forgive me. I was a fool. A city fool through and through.”
At dawn, the guests from the city headed back, just as the sky in the east began to lighten. Their farewell was brief—no long conversations or promises. Vadim gripped Artyom’s hand tightly in both of his, nodded apologetically to Polina, and climbed into the car. The SUV’s tires crunched softly on the snow-covered track as it carried its passengers back to the familiar, hectic world of glass towers and endless bustle.
Meanwhile, Artyom and Polina set off for the high sandy cliff above the river.
The storm was over. A huge, cold northern sun was rising above the taiga, painting the distant horizon in soft pink and golden hues. A wispy silver mist drifted over the river. The air was so fresh and clean that taking a deep breath made you feel dizzy.
Artyom approached his wife from behind, gently wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and felt her steady, calm breathing. Polina covered his rough hands with her warm fingers and leaned the back of her head against his chest.
“Do you ever regret it, Tyomushka?” she asked quietly, gazing out at the endless expanse. “You could’ve had all that… the city lights, big money…”
Artem smiled as he looked at the river, at his home village which was slowly waking up with thin wisps of smoke rising from the chimneys, and at the endless northern expanses that had truly become his home. This land had embraced him, helped him heal, and finally gave him that sense of belonging he had been searching for so long.
“Oh, you silly thing,” he whispered, gently kissing his wife on the temple. “It was only here that I really started living. Only here did I learn what happiness is. And you know, Polyushka, you can’t buy that for any amount of money in the world.”