Set in moscow during a three-day period in December 1949, 'The First Circle' is the story of the prisoner gleb nerzhin, a brilliant mathematician. At the age of thirty-one, nerzhin has survived the war years on the Germa...Set in moscow during a three-day period in December 1949, 'The First Circle' is the story of the prisoner gleb nerzhin, a brilliant mathematician. At the age of thirty-one, nerzhin has survived the war years on the German front and the postwar years in a succession of Russian prisons and labor camps.