Spin the Bottle

Olga Romanova, a well-known human rights activist and journalist, has suddenly written a dashing neo-noir. A political thriller with choppy elements, a coming-of-age drama with slash fanfic. It would have been typical yaoi (boys' love) if she had limited herself to men, but no.

The characters are easily recognizable, every day you see their prototypes on your smartphone or computer screens, even if you don't want to see them at all. The action begins in 1974 in the suburbs of Leningrad, moves to Moscow, Kabul, Berlin, Dresden, St. Petersburg and ends in the very near future.

All of this could have been. Or maybe it really was.

A cheerful young native of a Ukrainian village at the very beginning of the era of stagnation comes to conquer the Northern Capital. She tries to help people, she is smart, she has grip, she makes a dizzying career, crossing paths with the main Soviet female cosmonaut, with an aspiring KGB officer sent to Dresden, with gangsters, with members of the CPSU Central Committee, ministers, spies and assassins. Without feuding with anyone, without breaking the rules, by the end of her life she turns into a monster who has declared war on her homeland.