The events described in the novel take place in parallel in the 21st century and the second half of the 9th. In '21, history student Mikhail Arsenyev becomes interested in the ideas of his university teacher, Professor Sirotin, and dreams of writing a textbook on the ancient history of Russia, radically different from the official textbooks of both tsarist and Soviet times. In the 9th, the Krivichi Slavs, driven by Rurik and his Varangian squads from the profitable trade route “From the Varangians to the Greeks” and subject to tribute, were forced to go east, to escape from the Varangians in the dense forests where the Finno-Ugric people Meshchera live. The vicissitudes of the 9th and 21st centuries alternate in chapters. In the ninth, the Russian people are born as a result of the peaceful penetration of the Slavs into the forest expanses of the present-day Russian Plain, where they mix at the princely and common level with the aboriginal Finno-Ugric tribes. But it was not only the Slavs who moved to the east in peace. Vyatichi, the wildest Slavic tribe, is going to conquer the Meshcheryaks with fire and sword. But this way and that, in agony, a new people is born, who will be destined to reach the Pacific Ocean and create a great country. And in the 21st century, Professor Sirotin and student Mikhail Arsenyev, the descendants of those Krivichi, Vyatichi, Meryan, Meshcheryakov, Murom, Vesi... want to know the true, and not the ancient history of their country written to please the Rurikovichs and their followers. They want a people with a thousand-year history to finally learn about their true roots, which is tantamount to a new birth.