"The world has become tiresome to God, like a bad theater where the troupe is arrogant and talentless, the chorus is silent, and the steps of the altar are eternally stained with blood. That's why God hasn't visited here for a long time," says Moras, the protagonist of a novel written twenty years ago, but now sounding like a warning. This is a book about sailing in foreign, forbidden waters, a diary of a person convinced that free thought, and thus life, is only possible in defiance; everything else is just chemical processes. It is a journey novel where the heroes participate in an ancient mystery and perish because other possibilities turn out to be possibilities for others.

Lena Eltang's first book was shortlisted for the Andrei Bely Prize and the "National Bestseller" award and has been reprinted several times since. "A whimsical blend of European cryptodetective (in the tradition of Umberto Eco and Borges) with domestic bliss of the poor in spirit," wrote critics about the novel, calling it a masterpiece and the best Russian novel of recent years.