In an introduction written in 1990, during perestroika, the author wrote that the original title was The Hoop ("Обруч"), which was rejected by censors. The title The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years, taken from the poem "Unique Days" ("единственные дни") by Boris Pasternak, used for the magazine version (Novy Mir, #11, 1980), was also criticized as too complicated, and the first "book-size" version of the novel was printed in Roman-Gazeta in a censored form under the title The Buranny Railway Stop (Буранный полустанок).The novel takes place over the course of a day, which encompasses the railman Burranyi Yedigei's endeavor to bury his late friend Kazangap in the cemetery Ana-Beiit ("Mother's Grave"). Throughout the trek, Yedigei recounts his personal history of living in the Sary-Ozek steppes along with pieces of Kyrgyz folklore. The author explains the term "Saryozeks" as "Middle Lands of Yellow Steppes". Sary-Ozek (or Russified form "Sarozek", used interchangeably in the novel) is also the name of a (fictional) cosmodrome.Additionally, there is a subplot involving two cosmonauts, one American and one Soviet, who make contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial life form and travel to the planet Lesnaya Grud' ("The Bosom of the Forest") while on a space station run co-operatively by the United States and the Soviet Union. The location of the Soviet launch site, Sarozek-1, near Yedigei's railway junction, intertwines the subplot with the main story.
