First time in Russian: an intellectual bestseller by the modern American classic, a friend and comrade of Ken Kesey.
Journalist Christopher Lucas receives a commission to write a book about the so-called Jerusalem syndrome—a kind of grandeur mania in which a pilgrim believes he possesses divine powers and has been given a prophetic mission to save the world. And at the dawn of the new millennium, Jerusalem became a battlefield for the return of sacred relics—a battle involving Orthodox believers of all religions, self-proclaimed messiahs, assorted special services, and even Sufi dervishes. Hide-and-seek in an underground labyrinth and tangled conspiracies, races through streets shaken by riots, and sheer delirious romantic enchantment—no one yet knows what is more dangerous for the soul and the body in the Eternal City…