The Siege of the Church of the Holy Savior

The thirteenth century. The Bulgarians and Cumans are attacking the monastery of the Holy Savior. With their frightening attributes, gloominess, and bloodthirstiness, they stand alongside any "army of darkness" from modern fantasy. They have sinister shadows, and their leader Shishman... wears a lynx hat that comes to life and, at its master's command, attacks the guilty one. By the power of the prayers of all the people hiding in the monastery from the forces of evil, the church rose above the earth... The narrative spreads across the entire history of Europe: the treachery of the legendary blind man, the Venetian Doge Dandolo, the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders, the fate of the two Serbian kings Dragutin and Milutin. The novel even has its own Woland - a man with a dried gourd from which darkness spills out. For fans of magical realism, the novel will take a worthy place after "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "The Master and Margarita." Based on a real event, it reads like historical fantasy and a philosophical novel.