Russia, 1910. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, the ruler of the thoughts of mankind, is dying in the house of the head of the Astapovo station, and at the station a crowd has gathered that has never been seen before in this wilderness. The count's relatives, journalists and film reporters from all over the world, pilgrims, students, revolutionaries, spirit seers, hangers-on... Among them are the young cinematographer Nikolai Gribshin, who begins to understand that a movie camera can be used as a political tool; Professor Vorobyov and his sinister chest, which contains the keys to future religions; the red-bearded revolutionary Ivanov, who has just finished the book “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism”; and a mysterious Caucasian who escaped from Siberian exile. It is his radical plans for the historical reconstruction of the empire that are destined to be realized in the bloodiest manner... Ken Kalfus's historical fantasy "The People's Commissariat of Enlightenment" is a hypnotic novel of ideas and passions, linking the tragedy and comedy of the Russian Revolution with the global empire of appearances that have captured our imagination today.