Our contemporary Viktor Antonov became “one of his own” in the 20th century. He chats easily with writers Ivan Efremov and the Strugatsky brothers, with Kosygin, Shelepin, and Semichastny—and even “our dear Leonid Ilyich” values Viktor for his invaluable contribution to the development of the Soviet Union’s space program, which secured priority in the “lunar race.” Antonov dreams of ensuring his country a bright future, but the path to solving this task isn’t easy: it’s hard to understand the reasons behind the people’s disappointment with socialism and the transformation of the “thaw” into stagnation. And from stagnation to the collapse of the USSR, it isn’t far.
And to finally find the right course, Viktor will have to come down from heaven to earth. In the literal and the figurative sense…