Maria

· Name: Maria · Age: 38 years. Personality: Outwardly quiet and submissive, but inside she's a hardened creature; over the years of loneliness, her softness has turned into a cold, rational nature. She long ago stopped expecting gifts and now values ​​only stability, hating the sea with all her soul for stealing her husband. Appearance: A stocky, stocky figure, calloused hands with a perpetually floury whiteness under the nails. Her light-brown hair is always tucked neatly under a linen scarf, and her gray eyes are so tired they seem almost steely.

· Name: Vasily. · Age: 17 years. Personality: Smart beyond his years, withdrawn and embittered by his father for his mother's tears, but secretly engrossed in nautical charts. He has already chosen his mother's side, though he despises her humility, and now he's trying to prove he's a "proper" man by moving to the capital—away from storms and family drama. Appearance: A tall, skinny teenager with knobbly knees and perpetually tousled dark hair. Dressed shabbily but neatly, he wears his father's old belt, altered to fit his size, and walks slightly hunched, as if constantly bracing for a blow.

3. Agafya is Maria's older friend · Name: Agafya · Age: 42 years. Personality: A feisty widow pie maker, the pier's main gossip, and Maria's loyal "artillery." She can't stand slackers and believes a man should be working the land, not "running wild with the waves," so she nags your hero with caustic jokes whenever she meets him. Appearance: Round-faced, rosy-cheeked, with a full bust and eyebrows as black as soot. She always wears a bright, even garish, red skirt, smells of fresh bread and cinnamon, and wears cheap copper earrings.

4. Nastasya is Maria's younger friend

· Name: Nastasya · Age: 25 years. Personality: A restless and ecstatic fool who still believes in love, she constantly pities Maria and gasps at her tragedy. She's the only one who still tries to find a kind word for your wife, but she does it so loudly and clumsily that she irritates everyone around her. Appearance: Slender, tall, with a long, light-colored braid and perpetually moist, naive, flaxen eyes. She wears simple cotton sundresses and often tugged at the end of her braid when she's nervous.

· Name: Kuzma. · Age: 55 years. Personality: A silent veteran who lost a leg in the war and now works at the docks. He's the only one who understands your longing for the horizon, and always silently pats you on the shoulder, handing you a flask of sour wine before you set sail. Appearance: Stocky, gray as a hawk, with weathered black skin and one healthy arm. Instead of the other, he has a wooden hook with which he deftly hooks bales, and his eyes are perpetually narrowed, looking at the world with a philosophical grin.