Thickets. Russia in Siberia from Ermak to Peter

Alexey Ivanov's novel «Tobol» tells about the Peter the Great era in the history of Siberia. The novel has many plot lines. The governor transforms Siberia from a voivodeship into an empire. The architect builds a kremlin. The metropolitan searches for an idol in the miraculous chainmail of Ermak. A captured Swedish officer secretly creates a map of the Ob River. A Bukhara merchant establishes the distribution of illegal furs. Runaway schismatics prepare for mass self-immolation. A shaman sends demons of the taiga against Orthodox missionaries. A Chinese ambassador incites the Russians to war with the Dzungars. An exiled colonel, enchanted by a pagan woman, chases after his witch-like beloved. The army defends a steppe fortress from nomads. These vivid plots are based on real events from Siberian history, and many characters are real people about whom scientific studies have been written.
What were they like — Governor Gagarin and architect Remezov, metropolitans Philotheus and John, captured Swedes Stralenberg and Renat, colonels Novitsky and Buchholz, fiscal Nesterov and Chinese ambassador Tulishen, nobleman Tseren Dondob and soldier's wife Brigitte Tsimts, shaman Nakhrach Yevploev and many other heroes of the novel? This is what — the book by Alexey Ivanov and Yulia Zaitseva «Thickets» is about. «Thickets» is the historical basis of the novel «Tobol». It is also a story about how Russian Siberia was created from the times of Ermak to the times of Peter. A story about why Siberia was needed by Russia and what efforts were made to conquer the unknown taiga. «Thickets» is a reliable narrative about the audacity of explorers and the theft of voivodes, about the forgotten cities of Mangazeya and Alba-zin, about idols and shamanism, about wars with foreigners and Cossack uprisings, about furs and grave gold, about Siberian saints and protopope Avvakum, about serving people and exiled rebels, about mammoths and the first naturalists. Siberian history is full of passions, greed, and selflessness. And it is necessary to know it simply because we are Russians.