About the book: 2020 / The Red Army left Kyiv on September 19, 1941, without receiving an order to retreat. They retreated by blowing up bridges across the Dnieper. Having split into groups, we moved in an easterly direction. And there, scattered units of the Southwestern Front fought surrounded. Subsequently, all these centers of desperate resistance - dismembered, deprived of communication with each other - were called the Kyiv cauldron. The tragedy, confusion and chaos of the first months of the war derailed many destinies. This happened with Joseph Piskunov. A sybarite and reveler, Colonel Piskunov participated in the construction of the Kyiv fortified area in peacetime, which did not prevent him from enjoying life in the company of his young mistress. The war changed a lot, turning Joseph’s simple “paradise” into a cauldron of boiling tar, in which his entire family perished. Circumstances forced the colonel to cooperate with the enemy. Having lost everything, he sacrificed his officer’s honor to save his son, so that he could survive and be able to fight the enemy with weapons in his hands..