In the near future, Orthodox traditionalists will come to power in Russia.”—Jew? — a shaven-headed young man in a black leather jacket asked me. “No, what are you talking about?” Russian, Orthodox. Here’s a cross,” and I pulled out an iron cross decorated with green enamel by the chain from under my shirt. “Don’t poke me in the face with a cross,” the elderly stocky owner of the bass remarked weightily. - Maybe you've crossed out. So we have them too...” From the author: The story was first published in the anthology “Our Fiction” by the publishing house “Tsentrpoligraf” in 2001. Thank you very much to Kurt Ellis ( for the cover.The text of the book was translated from the original language using an artificial intelligence program. For the most part, the translation of the text is of very high quality, but in some cases, due to the imperfection of the technology, there may be incorrect phrase translations in the text, as well as single words and expressions may not be translated.