Tobol

About what is in part I:

In the era of Peter I's great reforms, "young Russia" boiled even in the dense Siberia. The emerging empire shattered the medieval voivodeship in the taiga. Peoples and faiths mixed together. Captured Swedes, Bukhara merchants, officers and officials, convicts, indigenous peoples, chroniclers and architects, Chinese smugglers, runaway schismatics, shamans, Orthodox missionaries, and warlike Steppe people—the Jungars—were all together, feuding among themselves or saving each other, shaping the fate of Russian Asia.

About what is in part II

The whimsical threads of human destinies, stretched through the first book of the novel, are now tangled into knots. The reforms of Tsar Peter plowed Siberia, and all those who were "called" to these free lands are wondering: are they "chosen" by Siberia? Runaway schismatics are erecting their fiery Ship—but will the souls of those who cursed themselves on earth ascend to the heavens? Russian regiments march for gold to the distant Asian city of Yarkend—but will they overcome the expanse of the steppes and the resistance of the Jungar hordes? The stubborn metropolitan breaks through to the sacred idol of the indigenous people despite the resistance of the taiga demons. The Tobolsk architect, guided by the secret signs of antiquity, rescues from captivity that whom he hates with all his heart. The omnipotent Siberian governor finds himself in the clutches of the sovereign, who must decide what is more important—his own pride or the interests of the state?

The stories of individual people weave into the general story of the country. And the history of the country moves with the force of the fierce struggle of the old against the new. And its profound energy is the tension of the eternal dispute between the Poet and the Tsar.