Irina is a Ukrainian caregiver and former literature teacher. We are in the years of Kuchma, and her country is in chaos: salaries are a mirage, corruption spreads at all levels. A mother to a daughter whom she wishes to provide with a different future, to secure herself a passport and a trip to Italy, she must navigate a perverse system where mafias reign supreme. They promised her a job as a domestic worker. This is the price to pay after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Post-communist Ukraine is a 'no man's land,' an El Dorado for wild capitalism. Irina will arrive as a clandestine, in an Italy where people like her are indispensable support for many families. Her encounter with Rosa, a feminist journalist and her employer, will confront her with a world that history has omitted. Will her Soviet rigidity survive this impact? Who will Irina choose to become: a mother of the homeland, as the dictatorship wanted, or a daughter of freedom? A story of ordinary humanity. A surprising, raw, and poignant novel that proves to be a useful tool for understanding the drama of a country whose tragedy is before our eyes.