“Austria-Hungary: the fate of an empire” is a fascinating story about an extremely colorful and surprisingly interesting country, a kind of European Atlantis, known to the Russian reader much less than it deserves. The Habsburg power has long been absent from the maps. The First World War destroyed this, perhaps, the most comfortable empire in history, but the experience of coexistence accumulated by its peoples is still relevant for Central Europe. Traveling through a dozen independent states, whose territories were once parts of Austria-Hungary, confirms that bygone times are still echoed today. The first edition of the book was published in 2010 under the title “Roots and Crown. Essays on Austria-Hungary: the fate of the empire”, and since then it has become a real bibliographic rarity. Never before has such a deep analysis of historical processes been accompanied by such a fascinating story about the everyday life and holidays of the Danube monarchy, such vivid portraits of the Habsburg dynasty and their subjects, so vivid essays about large and small Habsburg cities.