The Well

This book is quite unusual. It is a fantasy novel that is also a historical narrative, revealing to us the true picture of life in Russia and neighboring states in the second half of the seventeenth century. The hero’s fate, Semyon, is truly extraordinary. Born in a remote village in Tula province, he is captured by nomads and in the end ends up at a slave market… For twenty years he walked the roads of the East, visited Mecca and Jerusalem, and traveled along the shores of the Ganges and in Nanking. Sometimes a slave’s collar weighed on his neck, sometimes a Janissary’s blade flashed in his hands—but he preserved in his heart his Orthodox faith and the memory of home. And then it happened! By a miraculous twist, Semyon was transported from the scorching sands of Rub-el-Khali to his native land. But there is no native home, no former faith… Only hatred for old and new offenders boils in Semyon’s soul. And again he sets out on the road…