About the book: 2011 / The book includes new works by Maxim Osipov: a short essay that gave the name to the collection, three stories, a comedy and a drama. The heroes created by Osipov are looking for truth and meaning: their searches are not always successful and not even always honest, but lead to unexpected results. The life described by the author is scary, dark, full of losses, but still there is a place for happiness in it. The play “Scapegoats” can be classified as a comedy only because of the exaggeration and grotesqueness of the characters, but not because of the detective situation and not because of the way it was resolved. Rather, it is a tragic farce, an existential joke. The drama "Russian and Literature" - like the previously published story "Rock, Scissors, Paper", which formed the basis of the play - is an essay about the alien nature of the Russian authorities, about the ultimate power of Islam and about the fragile, paradoxical beauty of Christian culture. The characters experience their loneliness differently, have different attitudes towards the most important things - order, freedom, the inevitability of death..