The novel ‘A Darkness Falls on the Old Steps,’ recognized as the best work of the 2000s (Russian Booker of the Decade Award, 2011), is based on the author’s family history. Alexander Pavlovich Chudakov, one of the greatest Russian philologists of the 20th century, grew up in an intelligent family, by the will of fate thrown to the ends of the world - to Shchuchinsk, a city of exiles on the border of Russia and Kazakhstan. In the harsh post-war years, under the constant threat of new repressions and the lack of basic necessities, the protagonist’s family managed not only to survive: like the new Robinsons, these people are restoring a lost civilization. Despite everything, they managed not to become embittered and remain faithful to their origins.