Pentagram of Osoaviakhim

Today, one can still see a mysterious symbol on some houses in Petersburg and Moscow — a star surrounded by gears, gas cylinders, propellers, hammers, and rifles. This symbol is called «We Strengthen the Defense of the USSR», and it is the emblem of the Society for the Assistance of Defense, Aviation, and Chemical Construction, which existed in the USSR from 1927 to 1948. Since 1937, this star marked the houses of residents who participated in defense affairs. Now it is a symbol of a completed Soviet project, a mysterious hieroglyph emerging through the cracked paint.

«Pentagram of Osoaviakhim» is a book about the mystical beginning of the Great Soviet Endeavor, which transcended any alchemical experiments, where hopes for justice and the horror of futile sacrifices, heroic labor, and the selflessness of people, mistakes, defeats, and great victories are fused together. The heroes of this book are interconnected, but each lives a separate life. Here, Surganov refuses to offer a human sacrifice to the deity of new times — Cthulhu. Here, boys Big Minin and Small Lyapunov want to see the new metro station, but they fall into Moscow of a completely different era (be careful, new stations are not what they seem!). Here, the women of the Russian revolution imagined by the hero suddenly come to life and become part of reality.

A mystic writer, as Berezin characterizes himself, skillfully adjusts optical instruments so that the reader will also perceive the mysterious in everyday life. The supernatural is not a theme or plot here; it is vaguely sensed behind every word, just as the mysterious star emerges on the walls of houses.