Baron von der Zaitsev

Medieval Livonia, 1409. On the threshold of the Battle of Grunwald, which will change the course of history. And right at the epicenter of the coming events stands… an Ural pensioner, Ivan Fyodorovich Zaitsev.

Waking up after an unsuccessful fall in the woods, he finds himself in the body of a twelve-year-old Johann—the younger son of a Russian boyar who fled to the Baltics and became a Teutonic baron. His older brothers hate the “little devil” with a passion; his father goes off on a campaign, and the castle is teeming with greedy relatives and armed neighbors.

But worst of all: the hero has no magic, no gift, no map of treasures—and not even warm trousers. All he has is a head stuffed with scraps of knowledge from the 21st century: how to make a wheeled plow, how to boil hard soap, how to build a washbasin, and… a wooden cannon. War with the Samogitians and Lithuanians is just around the corner. The defenders in the castle are few and far between, and the peasants—with their families—are already fleeing into the woods.

“Baron von der Zaitsev” is a hard, ironic, and incredibly vivid novel about how an ordinary person with a flexible mind and a lousy character survives in an era where every day is a fight for the harvest, honor, and his own head. No pink ponies, no magic academies, and no all-forgiving beauties. Just mud, blood, gunpowder, and desperate hope.

For those who are tired of sweetly saccharine reincarnation stories and love history turned up to the point of breaking.