A modern “story about a real person.” A fascinating and dynamic novel about youth in the tectonic fault of the modern history of Russia: in the next, boiling, tearing, raging every twenty to thirty years. Starting with Pavka Korchagin from “How the Steel Was Tempered” and ending with Moreau from “The Needle,” the great country throws new heroes onto the embers of dying fires. The collective image of the main character, history student Alexei Malygin, combines the characteristic features of the 1990s generation. The daring of an athlete and the foundation of Soviet education. Clarity of thought and abstract dreams. Expectation of happiness and a slap in the face of reality. The atmosphere of those days is almost tactilely felt in every line. “Roofs”, “showdowns”, “new elites” and “war on TV” are signs of troubled times, very often returning in a spiral. When graduates of a civilian university become military officers, this is a reason to think. Many questions in “now” need to be answered in “then.”