Alexey Ivanov's novel "Tobol" tells about the Peter the Great era in the history of Siberia. The novel has many plot lines. The governor rebuilds Siberia from a voivodeship to an imperial one. The architect builds the Kremlin. The metropolitan searches for an idol in the miraculous chain mail of Ermak. A captured Swedish officer secretly draws a map of the Ob. A Bukhara merchant sets up a trade in illegal furs. Fugitive schismatics prepare mass self-immolation. A shaman sends demons of the taiga to Orthodox missionaries. A Chinese ambassador incites the Russians to war with the Dzungars. An exiled colonel, enchanted by a pagan, chases his witchcraft lover. The army defends a steppe fortress from nomads. These vivid plots are based on real events in Siberian history, and many of the characters are real people about whom scientific research has been written. What were they like - Governor Gagarin and the architect Remezov, Metropolitans Philotheus and John, the captured Swedes Stralenberg and Renat, Colonels Novitsky and Buchholz, Fiscal Nesterov and the Chinese Ambassador Tulishen, Noyon Tseren Dondob and the soldier's wife Brigitta Tsims, the shaman Nakhrach Evploev and many other heroes of the novel? This is what the book "Debri" by Alexey Ivanov and Yulia Zaitseva is about. "Debri" is the historical basis for the novel "Tobol". And also a story about how Russian Siberia was created from the time of Yermak to the time of Peter. A story about why Russia needed Siberia and what efforts were made to conquer the unknown taiga. "Debri" is a reliable story about the audacity of explorers and the theft of governors, about the forgotten cities of Mangazeya and Albazin, about idols and shamanism, about wars with foreigners and Cossack rebellions, about furs and grave gold, about Siberian saints and Archpriest Avvakum, about service people and exiled rebels, about mammoths and the first naturalists. Siberian history is full of passions, self-interest and selflessness. And we must know it simply because we are Russian.