Hap­pi­ness begins beneath a qui­et sky as vast as the hopes har­bored by men liv­ing far from cities. The two shep­herds, one old and near­ly tooth­less, the oth­er young and alert, sit by their flock through the night, joined by an estate over­seer. Togeth­er they trade tales—not of sheep or work—but of for­tunes hid­den in the earth, of mag­ic, curs­es, and long-for­got­ten men who once brushed shoul­ders with the super­nat­ur­al. These sto­ries, while half-believed, offer more than enter­tain­ment; they serve as emo­tion­al refuge. The land they live on is immense, harsh, and indif­fer­ent. Trea­sures buried beneath it become metaphors for some­thing deeper—something they can­not quite name but feel pulling at them nonethe­less.

As the elder speaks of Yefim Zhmenya—a man feared, per­haps envied, for his rumored pact with dark forces—the tale takes a strange turn. Yefim is said to have cursed vil­lagers, draw­ing ill­ness upon them as eas­i­ly as wind shifts across the steppe. His death left behind not just silence, but whis­pers of sil­ver and gold guard­ed by spir­its, untouch­able by ordi­nary men. The old man’s tone, cracked and low, sug­gests that per­haps these sto­ries are not just myths. He may not have seen such trea­sure, but he’s lived long enough to know that peo­ple shape their lives around belief, not facts. The young shep­herd lis­tens with a mix of awe and skep­ti­cism. His eyes remain fixed on the dark out­line of the hori­zon, as if wait­ing for trea­sure to rise like the moon.

The estate over­seer remains qui­et through most of the exchange, his pol­ished boots and stiff coat a sign of his dis­tance from the shep­herds’ world. He sees these tales as dis­trac­tions, quaint super­sti­tions from minds dulled by iso­la­tion. Yet some­thing in the old man’s cer­tain­ty unset­tles him. In a world that often gives so lit­tle, even illu­sions can sus­tain a man. The over­seer wants to scoff, but can’t. He knows that with­out these sto­ries, nights like this one would stretch unbear­ably long. Leg­ends about cursed coins and glow­ing spir­its become a form of sur­vival, just as impor­tant as bread or fire.

As night leans toward morn­ing, the sky begins to light­en and the stars fade. Their talk wanes too, leav­ing behind only thoughts unsaid. The young shep­herd, hes­i­tant but embold­ened by the old man’s tale, asks when they’ll begin search­ing for trea­sure. The elder does­n’t laugh. He only shrugs, as if to say, “We already are.” The land before them, wide and emp­ty, feels dif­fer­ent now. Not rich­er, but fuller. The promise of some­thing hidden—just out of sight—hangs in the air like mist. That promise, no mat­ter how faint, is enough to keep their spir­its upright under the bur­den of anoth­er long day.

Trea­sure in these sto­ries rarely refers to coins alone. It speaks of free­dom from toil, of recog­ni­tion, of final­ly rest­ing with­out wor­ry. For peas­ants and shep­herds whose lives are marked by monot­o­ny and hard­ship, such dreams offer more com­fort than truth ever could. The idea that some­where beneath the soil lies a key to anoth­er life can turn an ordi­nary evening into some­thing mean­ing­ful. Hap­pi­ness, in this sense, is not a des­ti­na­tion. It is a shared tale, a col­lec­tive yearn­ing wrapped in fan­ta­sy. These men do not find trea­sure, but in voic­ing their hopes aloud, they reclaim a sliv­er of con­trol in a world that usu­al­ly ignores them.

As the flock stirs and the first heat of day brush­es the steppe, they resume their roles—watchers, wan­der­ers, men bound to the earth. The over­seer departs with his mind cloud­ed, not by belief, but by some­thing more dis­ori­ent­ing: pos­si­bil­i­ty. The shep­herds say lit­tle as they move, but the young one’s pace quick­ens slight­ly. In a land where time crawls, any rea­son to move faster is worth hold­ing on to. Whether cursed gold waits beneath their feet, or just the sat­is­fac­tion of imag­in­ing it, they walk for­ward with some­thing they didn’t have the day before. A sto­ry, a sliv­er of won­der, and a frag­ile hope that even the harsh­est life can hold moments of imag­ined light.

In the vast open­ness of the Russ­ian steppe, hap­pi­ness does not come in the form of rich­es. It lives in belief, in the gen­tle com­fort of sto­ries shared under the stars. For men who work the land and live at the mer­cy of its cycles, such moments become priceless—fleeting reminders that even in a world of hard­ship, dreams remain free.