A brilliant retired naval officer unexpectedly finds himself in 18th-century Russia. The life he observes is far from matching the ideas he took from Soviet textbooks. Sergei quickly realizes he has enormous wealth—technical knowledge of the 21st century and more than two hundred years of human experience that simply doesn’t exist here. As a result, he manages to become a successful industrialist and banker, a charming romantic hero and a wise serf-owner, a shrewd politician and Екатерина the Great’s chief adviser. Russia’s life transforms with the appearance of this mysterious captain. But Sergei’s main goal is… pirate raids…