A grandiose romance with a frank love story about an aging continent - Europe, barbaric tourism, the search for Caravaggio's masterpiece and writing.

After parting with his beloved woman, the writer Ilya Leonard Pfeiffer arrives at the legendary Grand Hotel Europe, which always gave guests the opportunity to feel the atmosphere of the old continent. He wants to recreate a romance about lost love. But something goes wrong. The new owner of the hotel - an enterprising Chinese - is changing "Europe" literally before our eyes.

The writer looks with disgust at the crowds of tourists surrounding him. Unceremonious and narrow-minded, they wind kilometers along fashionable routes for the sake of another selfie, not understanding art and history at all.

Pfeiffer's chosen one Clio is the complete opposite of them. An art critic who has devoted many years to the work of Caravaggio, she is smart, temperamental and desirable. More recently, they came up with a difficult "game" and went in search of the artist's last painting. But the relationship, alas, ended, and now they are separated by thousands of kilometers.

Now Europe lives in the past. Pfeiffer caustically notes all the new changes in it, refusing to admit that he himself has not gone far from its typical representatives, and cautiously thinking about the future.

Who this book is for

For those who love stories like The Grand Budapest Hotel.

For those who liked Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code detective line.

For readers of novels, without which it is impossible to imagine modern literature - from "The House in which" to "The Goldfinch" - as well as books in which writers play a prominent role.

For those who want to travel around Italy after the main character, watching how the old the continent is filled with crowds of tourists.

For those who liked Paolo Sorrentino's film "The Great Beauty".

Published in Russian for the first time.