A few words about the author: When in Soviet times critics called Sergei Kaledin a “denigrator” and a “grave digger,” they did not even suspect that there was some truth in the latter epithet: at one time the author worked as a gravedigger, and his first major work, “The Humble cemetery" was dedicated specifically to the "afterlife". Written in 1979, the story was published in the late 80s, but even in this “soft” time it had the effect of a bomb exploding. A few words about the book: The fate of “Humble Cemetery” was shared by “Stroibat” - there for the first time in our literature there was talks about the inhuman conditions of service of the soldiers, whose hands created dozens of roads and factories - “shock construction projects”. Military censorship twice banned its publication and scattered the ready-made set. This story is also based on autobiographical material. The hero of S. Kaledin’s new story “Tahana the Merc,” the jack of all trades Pyotr Ivanovich Vasin, by the will of fate, finds himself in the “promised land.” At first, everything in Israel seems alien to him, a man from the Russian outback, both the people and the relationships between them. But “our man” will not disappear anywhere, and soon Pyotr Ivanovich acquired a lot of curious acquaintances, became needed by everyone, useful to everyone.