Summary:
Anatoly Kurchatkin's novel, set in Russia and Thailand, ranges in time from the Brezhnev years of political stagnation, when Soviet values seemed set to endure for eternity, through Gorbachev's Perestroika and the following tumultuous and disorientating decades. Under the surface, ancient currents are influencing the destinies of mathematician Rad, art gallery owner Jenny, entrepreneur (and spy?) Dron, American investor Chris, redundant Soviet diplomat Yelena and Thai playboy Tony in a rapidly globalizing world of laptop computers, mobile phones, credit cards and international finance. It is 2004, Vladimir Putin has been in the Kremlin for four years and the tsunami of lawlessness which swept over Russia in the Yeltsin years of 'gangster capitalism' is believed to be over. As the iron curtain rusts away and former Soviet citizens can at last travel abroad freely, the ethics of the New Russia encounter the unfamiliar values of Western capitalism and the Buddhism of Thailand. The fourteenth-century battle in which the Prince of Muscovy, inspired by St Sergius of Radonezh, defeated the Golden Horde of the Mongol Empire foreshadows a modern struggle for the soul of Russia.Videos