Russia has a feminine character and a feminine face - geopoliticians and ethnopsychologists have said a lot about this. But this face has many expressions. In his new novel, Ilya Boyashov tells the story of a Russian woman who rose from insignificance and dirt to the top of Olympus. Anyone who decides that this is just another fairy tale about Cinderella will be cruelly mistaken - Boyashov presented us with an archetypal image of Russian femininity in all its splendor, dashing and ugliness, an image through which the painfully familiar features of the heroines of yesterday, today and I think, the coming day. After reading “The Stone Woman”, you will involuntarily take a new look at the prima donnas smiling from the screen.