The Russian Empire is divided in two by the uprising of the Tatar peoples. Communication routes between European Russia and Siberia are cut off, communications do not work. An immediate threat looms over the capital of Siberia, Irkutsk, where the brother of the Russian emperor is located. It is necessary to warn him at all costs, and the only way to do this is to get through the lands captured by the rebels. This most difficult journey was entrusted to an officer of the corps of tsarist couriers, Mikhail Strogov. This edition presents a new (1997) translation of the novel, unlike the previous - pre-revolutionary ones - does not contain cuts and abbreviations, and is written in modern Russian.