FAR FROM THE NOISY BOULEVARDS and smoky factories of Moscow, nestled amid forests and rivers, fields and taiga, the Russian village carries on.

It is a beguiling place, where life slows down, where there is room and time for mystery and imagination, for berry picking and courting, for feuds and divinations, for autumnal mushroom picking and long winter evenings atop a Russian stove.

Buzina's colorful, enthralling stories (vividly illustrated by Asya Lisina and masterfully translated by Liv Bliss) take us to this pulsing, textured place, sharing stories - as if across a wobbly kitchen table - so fanciful you feel they must be fiction, but so meaningful that you know they must also be true.