Winter "Without Snow" is a book about the beginning of the war, about departure, about breaking up with one's roots and rethinking the Soviet past; about preserving one's sense of self-worth, about the experience of emigration and the fragile legacy one takes with one; about "extremist" love, life in different countries and the realization that Man is a citizen of the world: "I am now making my way through a time that has become like jelly—not because I am talking about the distant past, but because there is war again—and it seems to me that all the time—in general, ALL the time—is a single layer, like jelly; touch it in one direction and it will stir in the other. And yet there is nothing to breathe in it. Now one of us—whether it is me in Weinheim now, or my grandfather in Moscow at the very beginning of the century—is pushing, tossing and turning. And we hear each other."