Dmitri Zakharov

Komitet okhrany mostov

The Bridge Protection Committee Political thriller. AST Publishers. Moscow 2023. 416 pages

They were playing Minecraft, but the court believed they intended to blow up the new bridge over the Yenisei. They worked as mechanics, doctors, businessmen - but life forced them to set up a committee to save their own children. They were journa- lists and came across a bloody history of provocation and a Siberian cult.

This is a book about anger - fueling heroes whose children are in danger. This is a book about Siberia - the events of the novel take place in Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk and Tomsk. This is a book of hope - that the heroes might be able to resist the terri- ble Siberian history and the prosecutor‘s bloodthirstiness. In Krasnoyarsk, an extremist organization called „Committee“ is on trial. Its seven members (mostly students from the local and Novosibirsk universities) are accused of wanting to blow up a new bridge over the Yenisei.

Nikita, an investigative journalist for an online portal, also starts researching and comes to the conclusion that the „Committee“ case is an attempt to weaken the oligarch Ruzhinsky, a prominent party official. When the oligarch‘s daughter sud- denly disappears and Nikita is interrogated, he decides to ask the reclusive oligarch Ruzhinsky himself for help. Nikita learns from him that there is no daughter and that someone obviously made up the story on purpose.

The parents are also trying to save their children. But all in vain: they are not relea- sed, a middleman is killed in a strange way, their money is gone. There they find a strange helper Zhenya who has been gathering other parents around for some time. Zhenya convinces everyone else that the children were taken by the Winter Prosecutor, a cannibal of a Siberian legend. The only salvation would be a special ceremony - they would have to weave a magic web that alone could capture the enemy who sits in the regional administration.