Teenager A: I found an interesting relation between my age and the age of my father. Multiplying my age by the age of my father I get the same result if we use the correct ages or if both of us reverse the ages' digits prior to the multiplication.
Same happens if I do it with my grandfather's or even with my aged grand-grand father's ages.
B, A's brother: That applies to my age as well.
C, a friend: My age, too. But no grand-grandfather...
All the ages (A,B,C) are distinct.
What are they?

It was a brutally cold winter in Novosibirsk.

Masha's husband Andrei went out one day to harvest potatoes and never came back, leaving his pretty young wife with son A in arms.

Siberia is a tough place for a single parent. Masha met handsome Ivan at a tractor factory dance just over a year later, and A's brother B was born the following spring.

The brothers soon became inseparable friends with C,  just a year older than A, from the next-door cabbage farm. Just after B's 11th birthday, and 13 years after that tragic winter, a notable conversation took place...

Edited on November 21, 2011, 12:32 am

Posted by broll on 2011-11-21 00:01:38