An alternative world similar to ours at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Here television, mobile communications and the Internet either fell out of use or were not invented at all. The nameless city where the novel takes place could be located anywhere on the map of our country, and the atmosphere is somewhat reminiscent of the past we know - but what events in its history devastated entire neighborhoods and forced the border to be surrounded with barbed wire? For decades now the city is at war with neighboring Ensk. True, solemn reports about the unity of the people in the face of a hated enemy are not enough for the city residents to forget how much divides them. From the prosperous center, it’s only an hour by bus to the city outskirts, where mercenaries from the Sturm defense service live side by side with the looters in dilapidated five-story buildings. Fifteen-year-old Sashka had to take this path when he was accused of treason and expelled from the prestigious Guards Corps: with such a blemish on his biography, he is only accepted into stormtroopers - as long as he knows how to shoot. The mercenary squad becomes Sashka’s new home and new family. Here he finds true friends, learns the value of life and for the first time begins to think about why this long, long war is being waged. And he also hears a legend that somewhere far in the south there is a city in which there is plenty of everything and people live in peace with each other... The unsightly aspects of life, the everyday life of mercenary guys are depicted in the novel without embellishment, with amazing authenticity, but, like any dystopia, “A City Without War” is also a parable in which the authors comprehend the eternal questions facing the young generation at all times. The works of Svetlana and Nikolai Ponomarev have more than once been shortlisted for leading Russian literary awards. Their prose is characterized by both fascination and depth; for any complex topic they find the right words that are close to teenage readers.