One of the first Russian novels of the twenty-first century that explores the legacy of the Soviet system of penal camps by one of the best young writers in Russia. A young man travels through the vast wilderness of Upper Russia to uncover the truth about an enigmatic neighbor who saved his life and whom he knows only as Grandpa II.

What he finds, among the forgotten mills and the ruins of former gulags, is a world condemned to oblivion, where it is easier to ignore both the victims and the executioners than to come to terms with a terrifying past.

This chilling story recalls the great and crumbling beauty of a land where man and machine worked alongside nature to destroy millions of lives during the Soviet century. Emerging from today's Russia, where the wounds of the past are violently erased from public memory, this masterful novel represents an epic literary effort to save history from the brink of oblivion.

Pages: 288, Year of Publication: 0705, Dimensions: 13x13cm