The new novel by Vladimir Sorokin is a look at the future of Europe, which, despite the dramatic changes in the world and human structure, seems very understandable and real. The recognizable and the unrecognizable coexist peacefully on the bright tapestry of the New Middle Ages, populated by dog-heads and centaurs, small people and giants, crusaders and Orthodox communists. Infinitely different large and small peoples, reshuffled and divided into principalities, khanates, republics and kingdoms, have, as in the Middle Ages of the last millennium, one thing in common - the search for the absolute, the kingdom of God on earth. Only the eyes of the seekers are now turned not to the Kingdom of Prester John, but to the Republic of Telluria, to its deposits of magical metal that brings happiness.