About the book: 2023 / This story, unusual in plot and form of presentation, created in the style of MAGICAL REALISM, takes the reader to the first years of the 9th century, when the fate of Europe was being decided. The hero of the novel is a novice of one of the Constantinople monasteries, sent by the abbot to Italy. An amazing course of fate pits the novice and his unexpected companions - a Danish jarl and a Celtic wandering singer-bard - with the powers that be, Charlemagne and the Byzantine Empress Irina, and then takes him to the far north, to Gardarika, to the Novgorod lands. How God's Providence and God's permission are combined in human life - this question becomes the main one for the hero of the novel, who witnessed the key events of that century. (The novel was published by the publishing house "Russian Factory" in 2017)