The Time of Losers: A Book Not About Independence, but About Not Belonging

With this publication, Intentcontinues its series of reviews dedicated to contemporary Ukrainian publications. The reviews for Intent as part of this project are written by Maria Galina —a Ukrainian writer, poet, and literary critic, and winner of several literary awards. This time, we’ll be discussing Mila Smolyarova’s novel *The Time of Losers, or Cloudy with Clear Spells in the Crimean Capital* (*Laboratory*, 2026) —the story of twenty-year-olds in Simferopol in 2003 who do not yet know that they are living on the eve of the occupation.

I select books in line with our editorial strategy of highlighting southern Ukraine: these are either books presented right here or written by authors from the South—whichever works out best. It must be said that despite the shelling, the burned-down book warehouses, the print runs destroyed by Russian barbarians, and the cultural institutions that have been ravaged, we are currently experiencing a cultural resurgence. Because it is an integral part of national resistance—indeed, of any historical process related to a nation’s self-identification.

But with books on, let’s say, regional topics, things aren’t so simple. Partly because many of them are limited to regional themes, and partly because, to put it mildly, we have very few information resources that cover new book releases. We have strong and even iconic authors, but we cannot limit ourselves to them, no matter how much we might want to. So I’m very grateful to Hanna Ulyura, because thanks to her reviews, I discover authors I wasn’t familiar with before. It was she who drew my attention to Mila Smolyarova’s books. At first, thanks to her review, I became interested in the collection *Before My Eyes*, which includes the prophetic story “Where I Lost Everything,” in which the Kherson region was submerged—but that book was published back in 2022 (as I said, prophetic), so I settled on the author’s latest work—the book *The Time of Losers, or Cloudy with Clear Spells in the Crimean Capital* (Kyiv, “Laboratory,” 2026).

Svitlana Taratorina, whom I’ve written about and you’ve read about, calls *The Time of Losers* a novel. That’s probably true, because what we have here is the lives of several characters divided into short-story-like chapters, where the main character of one story becomes a secondary character in another—and vice versa. The novella seems to be the author’s favorite format in general, judging by her two previous books, which are essentially collections of novellas. There is also an important point: unlike the hard-core sci-fi futurism of the aforementioned story “Where I Lost Everything,” the events of the novel take place in 2003—that is, the text contains a noticeable element of nostalgia. And this is probably where we need to touch on the background.

Crimea in 2003 was a time of uncertainty—political, linguistic (by the way, what language did Smolyara’s characters actually speak, and can we interpret their dialogues as literary translations?), and economic... In fact, it was a time of uncertainty for all of Ukraine (there was still some time left before the Orange Revolution), but even more so for Crimea: Tuzla was on the agenda, “Old Songs About What Matters” was on TV on New Year’s Eve before the president’s address, and everything was all mixed up...

So Smolyaro’s characters find themselves in precisely that state of uncertainty. Lilia wants to become a lawyer, but works at a car repair shop. Oleg wanted to become an engineer, but dabbled in the tourism business and also works at a car repair shop. Anna works as a radio announcer, but lives with a junkie because she has nowhere else to go, and she occasionally sleeps with Lilia’s boyfriend. Herman is a more or less successful architect and a womanizer, but he’s drawn to Lilia. Then there’s Nastya, nicknamed “The Fox”; she was married to a Spaniard but came back because things didn’t work out there, and ended up marrying her longtime suitor. There are also their relatives—parents, sisters, and brothers. The characters, by the way, aren’t exactly concerned about the country’s future (or their own, for that matter): the president’s New Year’s address seems boring to them, and none of the characters pay any attention to the TV debates because they have to figure out who loves whom and who’s faithful to whom... They wander around the city, ride minibuses because they can’t afford taxis, hang out in bars, smoke constantly, drink mostly beer and “Three Stars” cognac, and have absolutely no idea what tomorrow will bring. There are also some attempts to trace their roots, but it turns out that their parents’ stories, too—with rare exceptions—are unhappy. Grandpa Pavlo (Lili’s grandfather) keeps his wife’s manuscripts—she was an unsuccessful provincial writer—among which is a story about the author’s first love, and it’s clearly not Grandpa Pavlo. The story is included in the book, and from it it becomes clear why Olena Kosenko never became a great writer—in fact, she didn’t become a writer at all.

Of course, the novel is written in the spirit of critical realism, so all the details must be authentic, and the author faithfully ties the characters’ movements and relationships to former locations and iconic landmarks. Leskov Street. Zhuchka (explained in the notes). The “Cotton” pub and the “Kapitany” pub (the sad demise of these establishments—typical, by the way, for that time—is also covered in the notes). What music they listened to. What songs they quoted… What “Pneumatika” and “Zelenka” are. So if you want to find out where Simferopol’s hip young crowd hung out and what they sang, this is the place for you. If you’re interested in the very complicated and very passionate relationships of young people—this is also the place for you, although, to be honest, those dramas out of thin air against the backdrop of Crimea’s harsh reality seem a bit unconvincing to me.

So, back to the theme of uncertainty. Because perhaps it is precisely for this reason—for the attempt to capture the mindset of the peninsula’s inhabitants—that *The Time of Losers* is worth reading. Crimea, judging by the novel, wasn’t particularly concerned with what was troubling—let’s say—mainland Ukraine. Partly because it thrived on Russian tourists: almost all the characters constantly complain about a lack of money, and yet here they are, practically for free. Partly because of the invading country’s cultural expansion: in a footnote, the author writes about the “Rupor” rock festival, which took place in Yalta under the patronage of the presidents of both countries. It’s no wonder the author emphasizes that the characters stubbornly refer to Simferopolas the “capital,” as if it were a separate country. A conversation about Tuzla comes up at one point, but fizzles out immediately (“What a load of nonsense—they’re building something, so what?”)... Actually, there’s no need to explain anything further here. Because everything that happened afterward began right then.

It all ends—both in the novel and in real life—with an occupation. Some of the characters did choose their identity and left occupied Crimea. Others stayed, not so much out of ideology as out of a reluctance to leave what was familiar and their own, a lack of identification, or a purely local sense of identity (“What would I do in your Odessas and Kyivs?”).

The author, Mila Smolyara, grew up in Crimea herself: in 1991, when she was 10 years old, her family moved there from Siberia, returning to their historical homeland. So she clearly knows what she’s writing about: she wrote the book based on her own experience and quite deliberately, which is why the portrait of her generation turned out to be honest. “Everyone had their own dream, was fixated on it; there was no shared dream, unlike today. People took events lightly—both personal and social—‘allowing themselves to live life.’ Now we’ve lost that lightheartedness,” she says in a conversation with book blogger and author of the Telegram channel “Crossroads,” Oleksii Rafalovych, during thenovel’s presentationin Ivano-Frankivsk. And she adds bluntly: “We squandered it, let everything that was happening right under our noses slip by.”

So this book is not so much about Independence as it is about a sense of not belonging, of detachment, because most of the characters do not identify themselves with either Ukraine or Russia (what difference does it make where the tourists come from—for whose sake do sons and daughters ask to vacate their own room, their own bed?). But sooner or later, a choice must be made. Sometimes it’s a choice to part ways with what was once your past, your life. “We’re home,” says one of the characters when, finally, after all the checkpoints and inspections, she sees the Ukrainian flag.

In the afterword, the author writes that the twenty years she spent carrying the idea for this story cannot by any means be called a failure. I completely agree with her on this. Tragic—yes. Painful—yes. But these are times when individual, private stories become part of one big story, and that’s an entirely different matter.

Марія Галіна