“The Caspian Sea has been my dream since childhood, from the moment when I saw its peritoneum protruding into Central Asia in a geography textbook. It fell out of the womb of my homeland like a cyclopean, lumpy afterbirth, inside which was visible the fruit, the birth of any civilization in general.” Following a long-standing plan, writer and traveler Alexey Rachun takes a long-awaited trip to the Caspian shores in the company of his wife, son and a mysterious GPS navigator named Oksana. This is not an ordinary travelogue, full of descriptions of exotic places, outlandish traditions and natural wonders. Quite the opposite: driving through the steppes, passing provincial eateries, traffic police posts and heading to the treasured Mangyshlak, the author rethinks his idea of the post-Soviet space and tries to understand the logic of the collapse of the usual psychogeographical contours. In his ironic and sometimes melancholic narrative, he strives not to glue together the ruins of the former empire, but to share their sad beauty with the reader. What will it be like to meet the dream of the Caspian Sea, born in completely different historical circumstances? And can hope for a miracle be stronger than time?