This is a big novel set within a relatively short book. It deals with the major disruptions of Russian history in the twentieth century from World War II to the coming of the New Russia after the demise of the Soviet Union. The central characters are Shukov, a middle aged onetime dissident and writer who has lives in Paris, and Volsky, a former soldier and victim of Stalin's purges.
"Sobornost", although not invoked directly, provides one of the central themes of novel, as embodied in the life of Volsky, the unknown man, who in the siege of Leningrad had "come to see human lives as one single communal life and it was perhaps this perception that gave him hope".
However, Volsky's sense of solidarity with other people is contrasted with the lives of the new Russian elite, who are in the process of removing him from a small apartment in Saint Petersburg so this can be re-developed. The eviction co-incides with celebrations of the city's tercentenary, and the arrival of global leaders, including one who for Makine seems to symbolise the New World Order, Tony Blair.
