 After his discharge in 1945 Astafyev settled for a while in his wife's parents' house in Chusovoy, then went to Krasnoyarsk, doing various jobs such as locksmith and smelter.In 1950 he started contributing to the Tchusovsky Rabochy (The Tchusovoy Worker) newspaper which in February 1951 published his debut short story "A Civil Man" (Grazhdansky tchelovek), which two years later was reprinted by the Perm-based Zvesda newspaper.In 1954 Astafyev was for the first time published by a Moscow magazine (short story "Splinter", in "Smena").