"Master!"— exclaimed the famous Soviet critic Anatoly Bocharov in one of his articles, ending his analysis of Anatoly Kurchatkin’s story "The Mistress of a Cooperative Apartment." Since then thirty years have passed, but whenever one reads the writer’s prose, one wants to repeat the critic’s definition. The hero of Anatoly Kurchatkin’s new novel "The Flight of a Bumblebee" is a gifted poet, an extraordinary person. The mid-1960s—when the Soviet strategic aviation armed with nuclear bombs is lifted into the air on alert—and the mid-first decade of the new century—when the hero meets a Kremlin official on a ski track in Sokolniki Park—handing over the required "kickback" in the form of stacks of "greens"—this is all the hero’s life. Two narrative streams—historical and contemporary—flow simultaneously, drawing a clear and vivid portrait of the times for the reader.