The Name of Rivers

Zakhар Prilepin is a writer, winner of the "Big Book", "National Bestseller" and "Yasnaya Polyana" awards. He is the author of the novels "Obitel", "Sankya", "Black Monkey", "Pathologies", "Some Will Not Go to Hell", collections of stories "Sin", "Boots Full of Hot Vodka", "Seven Lives", "Eights", and "People's Romance", collections of journalism "Peresvet is Coming to Us", "Flying Burlaks", "Not a Strange Tumult", "Everything That Should Be Resolved. Letters from Donbas", "Platoon", "Stories from Light and Instant Life" and "Coordinate Z".

"Maybe I didn’t succeed in anything, but I don’t think so.
Before you are the results of my painful reflections on our Fatherland.
To understand who we are and why, it was necessary to reassemble all notions, and I carefully, with the diligence of a child, reassembled them.
At what point of existence are we and where are we heading. What is the Motherland. What connection do we have to Ancient Rus. How close are the princes of the Rurik dynasty to us and who is Ivan the Terrible for us. How do we see the 'whites' from today and what should we think about the 'reds'. And other accompanying matters that we will not stop pondering for a long time: the Great Patriotic War and the devilish dances around it, the Ukrainian question, mired in lies, Vladimir Semenovich Vysotsky, Russian democrats, the Russian who has lost his shores, rock, the land beneath our feet, and the star above our heads. Ruthless Russian questions, merciful Russian answers".
Zakhар Prilepin