What really happened during the collapse of the Soviet Union? Psychological background of time. The main character of the novel tells through his memoirs and diaries about that environment of the 80s and early 90s, about the fermentation of the minds of the intelligentsia, when genuine thoughts were revealed, not prohibited by the authorities and not supported by any authorities. He founded the social movement “For a New World,” which expanded into a force recognized by the authorities. The narrator, frightened by his ascension to the top of a social movement, together with his friends and associates, organizes meetings and debates among the participants against the backdrop of an approaching economic crisis and hunger of the population. During the disputes between academic economists and humanists, marginalized people “without resources,” a struggle for power takes place between Gorbachev, the State Emergency Committee, the party nomenklatura and the new power “elite” led by Yeltsin, the process of destruction and revival of the country. The collapse of the old system sweeps away the talking people, “whose hubbub can probably be heard in space.” Character names have been changed.