The novel takes place in a parallel reality that is almost indistinguishable from our own. Perhaps that reality would have developed the way it usually does—if, as it so often happens, human factors hadn’t intervened, and luck hadn’t been on the side of a change in the vector of that reality’s development. As it turned out, fate brought together four young people, and the happy accident—something that, as a rule, comes to energetic, often ambitious people who share a common dream—gave them a chance to realize all their talents and inclinations. And in turn, this contributed to the start of a turbulent development first of Russia, and then of the rest of the world.