— You dragged your relatives into the capital—so you support them yourself. I’m not giving another kopeck, the wife declared.
Alina first realized the apartment had become чужой—no longer hers—when she couldn’t find her favorite mug. The very one: blue, with a little crack, a gift from her mother back before college. It had stood in its place for twenty years, surviving renovations, her parents’ moves, their deaths—and now it was gone. Alina opened cupboard after cupboard, shifted unfamiliar plates, pushed aside pots that had appeared from who knows where, and with every movement something hot and unpleasant swelled inside her.
“Lin, what are you clattering around with?” Sergey poked his head out of the bedroom, sleepy in an old T-shirt. “It’s only eight o’clock.”
“Someone took my mug.”
“What mug?”
“The blue one. Mom’s.”
Sergey scratched the back of his head and yawned.
“Well, check the dishwasher. Maybe it’s in there.”
“I checked. It’s not.”
“Then I don’t know.” He shrugged and disappeared back into the bedroom.
Alina stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the table piled with dishes. Yesterday’s plates, someone’s abandoned cups with teabags, crumbs all over the countertop. She rubbed her forehead, gathering her strength, and started cleaning. As she washed up, footsteps sounded in the hallway, and Tanya appeared—Sergey’s niece, who had come to Moscow to apply to college.
“Good morning, Auntie Alina!” the girl sang out brightly. “So what are we having for breakfast?”
We, Alina noted to herself, and silently took out a frying pan.
Half a year earlier, when she married Sergey, it had seemed to her that she would finally stop being alone in that huge Stalin-era apartment. After her parents’ death, the place had become too quiet, too empty. The rooms held the echo of her former life, and Alina felt like she was suffocating in the silence. Sergey had appeared unexpectedly—a kind, calm engineer from the design institute where she worked as an accountant. He paid her compliments, brought her coffee, listened when she talked about her parents. He wasn’t like the “capital” suitors—always rushing somewhere, always assessing you. He was simple. Reliable.
“Will your relatives come to the wedding?” she asked then, a month before they signed the papers.
“Nope,” Sergey shook his head. “They’re all far away. And they wouldn’t understand all this, you know. It’ll just be us—simple.”
Alina had been glad. She didn’t need a big noisy wedding. They registered at the civil office, celebrated the two of them in a restaurant, and Sergey moved in with her. He arrived with one suitcase and a bag of books. Modest. Undemanding. Perfect.
The first month was wonderful. Sergey made breakfast, they watched movies in the evenings, walked around Moscow. Alina showed him her favorite places; he admired the architecture, took photos, hugged her against the backdrop of old mansions. She felt happy.
Then his mother, Valentina Petrovna, arrived.
“Oh, Seryozhenka, my son!” She hung on Sergey’s neck right there in the entryway, pushing Alina toward the coat rack. “I missed you, my dear!”
Alina smiled, helped her undress, made tea. Valentina Petrovna examined the apartment with undisguised amazement, touched the furniture, peeked into the rooms.
“Well, I never!” she exclaimed. “Now this is something! And those ceilings! Seryozhenka, you’re a hero—you found yourself a bride like this!”
Something in those words pricked at Alina, but she kept quiet. The guest stayed a week, and every day Alina cooked, cleaned, did laundry. Valentina Petrovna didn’t offer to help, but she talked a lot about what a wonderful boy Seryozha had been as a child, how all the neighbors adored him, how he helped her, a widow.
“I’m only here for two days, Alinochka, don’t be mad,” her mother-in-law said when, after a week, Alina delicately hinted that maybe it was time to head back. “I just need to pick up my grand-niece Dasha from the station—she came to Moscow, we need to buy some things for admission. We’ll run through the shops once and leave.”
“Two days” stretched into four. Dasha turned out to be a noisy seventeen-year-old with a perpetually dead phone and a habit of occupying the bathroom for two hours at a time. When they finally left, Alina found that her new shampoo was nearly gone—and her bath towel had disappeared.
“Seryozh, have you seen the big white towel?”
“Which one?” He was scrolling on his phone, lying on the couch.
“The one that hung in the bathroom. The terry one.”
“Oh—Mom probably put it in her bag by accident. Mixed it up. It’s not a big deal.”
Alina wanted to say it was a big deal—that it was her towel, the one she and her mom had chosen at Zara Home, their last purchase together before the illness. But Sergey was already buried in his screen again, and she decided not to ruin the evening.
Next came Sergey’s sister, Lyuda, with her eight-year-old son, Misha.
“I’m only here for three days, Alinochka,” she chirped, settling into the living room. “I need a surgeon’s consultation—back home we don’t have specialists like that. And I’ve got no one to leave Misha with; his father, you know, is useless. Sergey, you don’t mind, do you?”
Of course Sergey didn’t mind. Alina couldn’t object either—what kind of person refuses someone who’s sick? But in three days Misha broke a vase that had stood on the dresser since Grandma’s time, scribbled on the hallway wallpaper with markers, and flooded the bathroom. Lyuda only gasped and said, “kids, kids,” but she didn’t apologize—let alone offer to pay for the damage.
When they left, Alina counted the cash in her stash box. Two thousand were missing. She asked Sergey.
“Well, I took it,” he shrugged. “Gave it to Lyuda for the road. She’s alone with a child. It would’ve been awkward to refuse.”
“Seryozh, but that’s my money. You could’ve at least asked.”
“Oh come on—don’t be stingy. We’re family.”
Your family, Alina thought, but didn’t say it aloud.
A month later Uncle Grisha appeared in their apartment—Sergey’s father’s younger brother. He needed help finding a job, and Sergey promised he’d “crash for a couple of days until he sorts things out.” Grisha turned out to be a heavyset man around fifty who snored at night, smoked on the balcony despite the ban, and watched football while loudly commentating on everything happening on screen. He stayed for two weeks. Alina worked from home, and every day around lunchtime Uncle Grisha would appear in the kitchen, ask, “What’s for lunch?” and calmly wait for her to cook.
“Seryozh, when is your uncle moving out?” she asked one evening when they were alone.
“Soon, Lin. He’s looking for work, you know. You can’t just throw a person out on the street.”
“But it’s been almost a month!”
“So what? The apartment’s big—you’re not cramped.”
“I am cramped, Seryozh! I can’t breathe! I can’t work нормально—he’s always making noise, my things keep disappearing!”
“Don’t exaggerate. And besides, it’s my family. You wanted the home to feel alive.”
Alina fell silent. Yes, she had. But not like this.
The climax came when Tanya arrived. Sergey’s niece was applying to a Moscow university and took the apartment as her rightful living space, completely naturally.
“Well, I’m a student now—I’ll live here!” she announced cheerfully, taking over the small room that used to be Dad’s study. “Uncle Seryozh, you don’t mind, do you?”
Sergey didn’t mind. Alina tried to object:
“Seryozh, but we didn’t discuss this. Five years of studying—that’s serious. Maybe she could live in a dorm?”
“What dorm, Lina? Have you seen them? A bug-infested dump. I can’t leave my niece in those conditions. Just put up with it a bit—she’s quiet, she won’t take up much space.”
Tanya wasn’t quiet. She brought friends who cackled until midnight, left dirty marks in the bathroom, grabbed everything from the fridge without asking, and one day Alina caught her in their bedroom, trying on Alina’s jewelry in front of the mirror.
“Tanya, what are you doing?!”
“Oh, Auntie Lina, sorry!” the girl wasn’t embarrassed. “I just wanted to see what pretty earrings you have. Can I wear them on a date tomorrow? Lend them to me?”
“No, you can’t. Those are my personal things.”
“Wow, what a stingy meanie.” Tanya pouted. “Uncle Seryozh, Auntie won’t give me the earrings!”
And Sergey, without even looking into it, said:
“Lina, come on—give them to her. It’s just one evening.”
Alina simply left the bedroom. She locked herself in the bathroom and cried quietly, staring at her reflection. She didn’t recognize this apartment, or her life, or even herself. Where was the Alina who had dreamed of a warm home, a family? Now she felt like a servant within her own walls.
And then Uncle Grisha came again. “For a few days—problems with work.” And Lyuda with Misha—“for a week, I kicked my husband out, I have nowhere to go.” And some distant aunt Alina had never seen in her life, but who acted like a full хозя́йка, making comments about what was in the wrong place…
The apartment buzzed like a beehive. In the mornings there was a line for the bathroom; in the evenings, a crush in the kitchen. Alina cooked for all of them every day, bought groceries, washed other people’s laundry. Her shampoos ran out at an unbelievable speed, her creams vanished, her favorite mugs got broken. She found apple cores on her desk, someone else’s socks in her bedroom, her makeup scattered all over the bathroom.
Sergey didn’t notice. He came home from work, ate dinner, watched TV, and went to bed. He was happy to have his relatives nearby. He felt like the head of a big family. And Alina was turning into a shadow.
The blow-up happened on Saturday. Alina was standing in front of the fridge, about to fry cutlets for everyone, when she discovered the meat was gone. She had bought three kilos the day before—extra, on purpose. She opened the fridge: empty. Checked the freezer: there were only dumplings Uncle Grisha had brought.
“Who ate the meat?” she asked, stepping into the hallway.
Silence.
“I’m asking: who took the meat out of the fridge?!”
“So what’s the big deal?” Tanya poked her head out of her room. “The girls and I grilled shashlik in the park last night. You were asleep—we didn’t want to wake you.”
“You took three kilos of meat that I bought for the whole week and burned it in the park?!”
“We didn’t burn it—we cooked it. Why are you yelling?”
That was the last straw. She went into the bedroom where Sergey was lying there with his phone, took out her wallet, and threw the store receipt onto the bed.
“Seryozh, I spent forty-seven thousand rubles on groceries this month. Forty-seven thousand! That’s almost my entire salary. And the electricity bill has doubled, the water bill has tripled—because your relatives are living here like it’s a hotel. I’m exhausted.”
“So what do you suggest?” He didn’t even look up from the screen.
“I suggest they move out. All of them. Today.”
“Lina, what’s gotten into you?” Now he looked at her. “That’s my family.”
“And this is my apartment. Mine! I was born here, I grew up here, my parents died here—do you understand?! And I’m not going to turn it into a коммуналка for your relatives who don’t give a damn about me!”
“Don’t yell. They’ll hear you.”
“Let them hear!” Alina didn’t recognize her own voice. “Let them hear that I’m not going to be their maid anymore! Let them hear I’m sick of finding cigarette butts on my balcony, dirty plates in my room, and an empty fridge in my kitchen!”
“Calm down,” Sergey got up and tried to hug her, but she stepped away.
“Don’t touch me. Tell them to pack their things.”
“Lina, be reasonable. They have nowhere to go.”
“That’s not my problem, Seryozh.” Her voice turned cold and чужой. “You dragged your relatives into the capital—so you support them yourself. I’m not giving another kopeck.”
She turned and walked out of the room. Everyone was gathered in the hallway—quiet, guilty, but still not believing the party was over. Alina passed them, grabbed her bag, and put on her jacket.
“I’m going to a friend’s,” she said, looking at Sergey. “When I come back in three hours, I want the apartment empty. Or I’ll call the police and start the eviction process. A lawyer already explained everything to me.”
She wasn’t bluffing. Yesterday she had actually consulted a lawyer she knew and learned her rights. The apartment was her property; she had every right to распоряжаться it. And even marriage registration didn’t change that.
The front door slammed. Alina went down the stairs and stepped outside. Her legs were shaking, her heart pounding, but for the first time in months she felt alive. Angry, drained—but alive.
She came back four hours later, deliberately staying out longer. The apartment was empty. Perfectly, suspiciously empty. On the table was a note from Sergey: “Everyone left. Don’t be mad. We’ll talk tonight.”
Alina walked slowly through the rooms. In her father’s study, there was still a mark on the desk from a mug—a pale ring on dark wood. In the bathroom, there were someone else’s hair clips on the shelf. In the kitchen—a mountain of unwashed dishes. But there were no people. Nobody.
She opened a window, let fresh air in, and only then allowed herself to sit down. She sank onto the living-room sofa and simply sat there, listening to the silence.
Sergey came late that evening. She was in the kitchen with tea, and he carefully sat down across from her.
“Lina, I’m sorry.”
She said nothing.
“I truly didn’t think it would turn out like this,” he went on. “They promised it would be just a couple of days. I believed them. I didn’t want you to get so worn out.”
“You didn’t want to protect me,” Alina said quietly. “Not once. Not even when Tanya was digging through my things, not when your uncle smoked three packs on my balcony, not when they ate my food. Not once did you tell them it was wrong.”
“I felt awkward. They’re guests—family.”
“And what am I? Who am I?”
Sergey lowered his head.
“You’re my wife. The closest person I have. Forgive me, please. I honestly didn’t realize they’d climb onto our backs like that. I thought I’d help a little and that would be it. I didn’t know it would end up like this.”
Alina looked at him and saw a tired, lost man. Not a villain. Not a traitor. Just a weak man who wanted to please everyone—and in the end betrayed the person standing right beside him.
“Seryozh, I don’t know if we can go on,” she said slowly. “I need time to think. But know this: none of your relatives will ever move into this apartment again. Never. If you can’t accept that—leave now.”
“I accept it,” he said quickly. “I swear. No one else. Just us.”
She nodded and took a sip of tea. It was cold and tasteless, but she drank it to the end. Then she stood up, rinsed her cup—her blue one, which she found that evening behind the sofa where Tanya had tossed it—and put it back in the cupboard.
“I’m going to sleep,” Alina said. “We’ll think tomorrow.”
She went into the bedroom and locked the door. She lay down in the empty bed, pulled her own blanket over herself, and only then let the tears roll down her cheeks. She cried quietly, for a long time—mourning not so much a ruined marriage as the naïve faith that you could build a family on compromises and constant уступки.
But when the tears ran out, and she lay in the dark listening to nighttime Moscow outside the window, something else appeared inside her. Small, stubborn, firm. A sense of dignity. A sense of right. A sense of home she had defended.
Tomorrow she would wake up in her own apartment. Whether she’d be alone or with her husband—time would tell. But definitely without strangers, without чужие demands, without чужие expectations. And as the silence embraced her, Alina smiled into the dark.
Her home. Her rules. Her life.
At last.
