The “time of Gethsemane” is a time of choice and suffering. But this time, uniting everyone who has experienced personal grief or shared something common, expresses like no other what can be called “the personality of the people.” The Russian writer turns to this time in search of truth, the need for which becomes inevitable for everyone, when the soul demands utmost, confessional honesty in looking at itself and its life. Oleg Pavlov's book is imbued with this truth. After Solzhenitsyn, who published “Russia in Collapse,” he was not afraid to set himself the same task: “to capture what we have seen, are seeing and experiencing.”