The stories I have written are based mostly on the real events, sometimes just description of what has really happened. Some of them were the sparks for the Crater series novels.
The reason I have started to write Crater series was the desire to express the worldview of those, who seek not riches or power, but the understanding of the world and the place of the human being in it. Such people live in certain social isolation. Their world looks removed from the everyday struggle for survival. Yet, they inevitably have to deal with the life’s realities, like many other people do. They have to sell the results of their labor either themselves or with the help of those with better social skills. Can it be done differently? Can one be a creator and a seller at the same time?
Another set of questions that interest me are: Can science solve all problems? What is the contributing role of business in a social development? How one finds the purpose and the meaning of his life?
Attempts to answer these and similar questions also brought me to this project.
This is the first book of the series united by the main themes and characters.
A group of young scientists and a few their friends, some with special military training, decided to investigate the Patomskiy crater in the middle of Siberia – just northeast of the Lake Baikal. It sits just between the main Russian gold mining region and diamond fields of Yakutia.
They hoped to have a nice and interesting break from the grim routine of their lives before the declining economy would render such trips not affordable anymore.
What they actually encountered was far from the easy and exciting journey. It changed their lives in a way only tragedy could.
The described crater is real. You can see its picture and some related facts on this page.
The book Crater you can buy on www.amazon.com or get it free by subscribing to the newsletter.
In Center (the second book in the Crater series), the life of Yegor Koshkin – the protagonist of the previous book Crater – radically changes. He goes through challenges, and his friends help him as they come together again in the same area in Siberia on a rescue mission.
In this book, the reader learns more about the characters introduced in Crater. They live in a rapidly changing world of post-Soviet Russia, when inflation went up beyond 2,000%. Yes, my dear reader, it was two thousand percent! We lost everything that year.
But life is going on, which means that hope and love are flourishing and provide respite from the grim reality.
In this book, the answers to the main questions that motivated the series (about science, business, and meaning of life) are getting more traction. Under the pressure, the characters are opening up and reveal their human core.
The images and facts that serve as the background for the book can be found on this page.
In Diamonds (the third book in the Crater series) the same characters, soon after the events of Center, are defining a new worthy goal of their life. This goal is related to the crater and bears a hope to change for better not only their livies, but the lives of many other people too.
The action moving plot is centered around diamonds prospecting. But the main focus is on the discovery of the true nature of the crater’s influence on people. Unfortunately, Russian leaders are more concerned with their own enrichment than utilizing the discovery for the benefits of the country, and Yegor gets into a serious trouble with no fault of his.
Some materials, collected in the course of the writing of this book, are presented on this page.
The fourth book Dark Matter is in the process of writing.
Dark matter keeps the Universe together despite the breaking power of the dark energy that tears the galaxies apart at the accelerating speed. Similar, in our society the uniting power of cooperation and trust keep us together despite the primordial struggle for the individual survival that pulls the society apart.
Leading capitalist ideology identifies this struggle as the engine that moves the progress and creates better life for the participants, even to the losers (according to the notorious “trickle-down economics” theory). Meanwhile, the peaceful cooperation proved to be more productive if not the single source of modern prosperity.
Majority of society consists of honest hard working people. But one rarely sees them glorified by the media. Power struggle, cruelty, and greed are the main subjects of the news and movies today. Honesty is not fashionable, although honesty-based trust is the foundation of the social unity and productive cooperation, and honest hard working people are true heroes and keepers of the humanity.