Individual peasant Konstantin Fedorovich Izmailov served in the State Bank, in the post office, in the district and in the police; was a storekeeper and cashier, while working part-time as a joiner, glazier and hairdresser; sold vodka and drank it himself. He performed in an amateur theater, sued for embezzlement and hooliganism while intoxicated. He regularly starved, almost drank himself to death, made coffins for his two young sons, and in 1941 went to war and went missing somewhere near Leningrad. On this, his diary - almost twenty years of daily records - ends. Izmailov's testimony is unique: it is a detailed story about the life, hardships and "new life" of the pre-war Soviet village.