Pelagia and the Red Rooster (with transcript)

The new edition of the novel «Pelagia and the Red Rooster», supplemented with a chapter «Transcript».
In this section, Boris Akunin tells how the work on the book progressed, what ideas and events formed its basis, and how the characters were... developed.
This time, the tangled thread unwound by Sister Pelagia leads her too far — to a place from which there is no return. The story begins on the steamer «Sevryuga», sailing down the Volga, where there is a motley company — the thief Kolobok, German colonists, a family of Sodomites heading to the revived Sodom, a group of Doukhobors sailing to Canada, Archbishop Mitrofani with a nun and secretary, Jews with Rabbi Aron Shefarovich making a pilgrimage to the Promised Land, «finders» (Russian people who converted to Judaism) with their leader Manuila, and secret «Christ's oprichniki»… And during this voyage, while Kolobok was busily rifling the pockets of the passengers, the murder of Mr. Manuila occurs, just like Kolobok, during his next theft.