At a reception held by the French ambassador in Moscow, the elite of Russia’s liberal opposition gathered. In the light of changes in Russia’s political life, blowing from the Bolotnaya Square, the banquet was convened not only for pleasant conversation and savoring refined cuisine. But the celebration was overshadowed by an ordinary investigator from the criminal investigation department, who brought charges of murder against a French citizen.
The novel’s detective intrigue gradually turns into an excursion through twentieth-century Russian history, into reflections on the causes of Europe’s revolutionary upheavals.