Remarkable Russian books of the 21st century

A novel about a person's path through different historical formations and cultures: from the Sayan Mountains and ancient shamanism through the Mongolian lands ripening for a great campaign, to the glorious city of Samarkand. The action takes place at the beginning of the 13th century. And the main thing in it is the fate and moral choice of the hero, things that are interdependent. In seriousness and depth, "Ilget" surpasses "Lavr" by E. Vodolazkin. And it is written better

The novel begins with a roll call with Rasputin's "Farewell to Matera". In both cases, the island symbolizes Rus'. But if Rasputin says goodbye to Matera, Bushkovsky's Rymba does not die, but lives. It affirms the inviolability of the Russian land, the courage and strength of the Russian spirit: "The island is mighty, the village is old and tenacious, the people in it are kind and cheerful, and the lands and waters around feed them and give them drink, just don't be lazy, don't be greedy and don't litter around you"

In the northern villages where "Sogra" came from, written based on the results of folklore expeditions, the achievements of civilization are a refrigerator and a telephone, the rest is not needed. But you need to know how to talk to a cow and bees, communicate with the Master of the Forest. The book lives with every word. It sounds and sings. Bogatyreva made the living speech of the northern hinterland the language of the book, preserving its figurative and semantic charge

A collection of stories united by the question: why is there so much aggression and violence in society? Everyone will find their own answer (this is the peculiarity of a modern, metamodernist text), my answer after reading Ryabov is because the place of the human in man is empty. Replacing it with an illusion (money, cinema, football, mistresses, lovers, etc.) will not work. The warmth of humanity, human "togetherness" - this is the only remedy against fascism

A metamodernist novel that shows the variability of truths in the modern world – and at the same time the axis that organizes this world. This axis is love. Which conquers the fear of death. At first glance, this is a novel about the near future and AI technologies. But the question of the power of AI is resolved here very ambiguously