“Indiscriminate affinity. A novel from 1835,” according to the author, is an experiment in creating narrative prose in the quasi-romantic genre. Critics evaluate it as a phantasmagoria and a historical novel, and the title (and not only) directly points the reader to Goethe’s famous book. Whether this is a uniquely skillful stylization of romantic prose of the 1830s or a new experiment, the reader will have to decide. But amazing secrets and adventures, descriptions of Italian cities (in “Indiscriminate Affinity” and in the story “Islands in the Lagoon”) and besieged Leningrad (in the story “Leningrad”), the laughter and tears of the heroes will not leave anyone indifferent.