The Doomed City

One of the most enigmatic books by the Strugatsky brothers, the genre and purpose of which each reader interprets in their own way.

A philosophical parable? Dystopia? Coming-of-age novel? The main character, Andrei Voronin, finds himself in a City where there is a universal right to diverse labor.

He tries himself in various professions and finds himself in complex, sometimes contradictory life situations. What is the purpose of the mysterious City Experiment, which brings together people pulled from different temporal layers?

Or is it one of those cases where the right formulation of the question is much more important than the answer?