Wednesday, December 12, 1923, began like an ordinary day at the Czech gymnasium of the small town of Moravska Trebova, located on the border with Germany. However, the desks were occupied by unusual students: boys and girls, young men and women of different ages and classes, united by a common history, all forced to leave Russia due to the revolution.

Reading their stories, you can almost smell the scents, hear the gunshots, see the broken children's doll, the abandoned summer houses, and the luxurious apartments left in haste. Together with the children, you embark on steamships to Novorossiysk, to Crimea, and then further, to Europe, America, and the Middle East.

The idea to record the memories of the students came to the director of the largest Russian émigré school in Moravska Trebova, Adrian Petrov.

"The language of the children's essays is so truthful that it sends chills down your spine. It seems as if the children have had their skin stripped away, and they feel the weight of history more acutely than others. This is a unique historical document of such magnitude," says the granddaughter of Russian émigrés and a specialist in the history of Russian emigration, Katrin Klein-Gussef, who published a collection of children's essays in French a few years ago.

"Executions happened three times a week: on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. In the morning, when we went to the market to sell things, we saw a huge streak of blood on the pavement that dogs licked."

"I won't describe further. I really don't want to remember more about my dear homeland and my late father."

"Oh, adults, adults! Not only do you cut each other, but you have poisoned our childlike souls, drenched us in blood, turned me into a thief, a murderer... Who will wash the blood off me... I am sometimes scared at night... The only thing that comforts me is that I did all this in my youth, and the belief that there is Someone Merciful, Who will forgive and not condemn, like people!"