By the end of 1922, almost 300 thousand refugees came to Manchuria from war-torn Russia. Harbin, a city in northeastern China, seemed to be a salvation. In fact, it was through him that the front of the Russian Troubles lay for a quarter of a century. The main character of the novel “Harbin” found himself in the grip between the “golden treasury” of the Russian Empire and the plans of Soviet and Japanese intelligence services. The story does not feature Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek or the Mikado as heroes, but it artistically and historically accurately depicts the life of the city, conceived and built as the capital of the Russian-Chinese railway, and its inhabitants, who became victims of the tremendous upheavals of the first half of the 20th century. The heroes of the novel "Harbin" were participants in these events.