Yegor had school and Iosif had a border to ruthlessly defend from hungry reindeer.

I went in expecting a cute romantic short story. What I got felt more like an outline for something longer, expanded into scenes in a few semi-random places. The big reveal was so abrupt and heavy-handed it felt jarring. The external conflict was so jumbled/summarized that it was hard to figure out what it was about in the first place. A new character... sorry, a whole bunch of them, but only one with a name barged into the plot seemingly for the sake of a MC making two funny-ish quip at someone, then hang back. The characters had the barest hints of personalities.

Still, underneath all of these flaws, the story was so promising! There was a strong start with a nice sense of setting, hints at interesting supporting characters (who never really made it into the plot), and a fun POV voice. Oh, and the author also got Slavic names and diminutives completely right, which is always a plus (and sadly an oddly rare one). This could have been a great wintery fairy tale! It just... so clearly wanted to be at least a novella.