“The Pets” by Zhenya Berkovich is a prison fairy tale. Everything told in it is the pure truth, but all the characters are fictional, and any coincidences are accidental. The setting is Tyurmyau (Prison-Meow), where cats, rats, dogs, cockroaches, a crow, and, of course, humans must coexist—though this story is not about the people. The main character, Volny Kotan (The Free Cat), undergoes a series of trials to understand that even in the darkest and most difficult circumstances, there is always room for friendship, resilience, and mutual help. Zhenya Berkovich—a director, writer, founder of the independent theater company “Daughters of SOSO,” and a student of Kirill Serebrennikov—is one of the most notable figures in contemporary Russian theater. In July 2024, Berkovich was sentenced to six years in a penal colony based on a fabricated charge of “justifying terrorism” in her play “Finist the Brave Falcon.”