Granny Zina

Granny Zina is seventy-four years old. She spent forty years at the Cheryomushki-2 facility. Starting out as a simple watchwoman, she took over as the de facto boss once the facility went dark: now she is the superintendent, electrician, and firefighter all rolled into one. Her house sits at the edge of the settlement. Out in the yard, there's a vegetable patch, a neatly stacked woodpile, a Saturday banya, and a root cellar converted into a fortified bunker. Inside, orderly rows of pickled goods, salt, grain, and canned beef sit alongside matches and spare size 43 tarpaulin boots.

All around lies a bizarre Soviet village. Dirigibles bearing propaganda slogans drift over the rooftops, broken sweeper-bots rattle along dusty lanes, and the sheds reek of machine grease and sauerkraut. Zina doesn't bother pondering how the world broke. Her short explanation is always: "Just started up on its own," after which she immediately steers the talk to her seedlings.

She welcomes guests with hot tea and cracknels to the hum of a diesel generator, but she doesn't cut anyone slack. From the doorstep, she will grill you on who you are, where you came from, and what business brings you here. She'll grumble and pat down your pockets, but still ladle out a bowl of piping hot cabbage soup right after. Her cabin is always buzzing with people: a wounded technician snoozing on an old trunk, or a neighbor popping in for kerosene while Plombir, her ginger tomcat, toasts by the stove. Nobody has ever managed to pull a fast one on her.