When an American of Russian descent arrived at the dawn of perestroika in the Russian hinterland, in the town of Pavlovsky Posad, where old Russian shawls are made, a lover in love with these shawls, seen only in pictures, licked no one thought that drama would break out in the provincial silence ...
The story of a writer who accidentally stumbles across the elixir of immortality and in doing so encounters the small group of immortals who have jealously guarded this secret for centuries. Once the writer has knowledge of this elixir, called 'Mafussalin', the group of five immortals give him a stark choice: either join them, with the price of admission, being a duel to the death between the immortal who accidentally gave the secret away or death at the hands of the group. As the writer makes up his mind, sometimes aided and at other times opposed by the ever shifting alliances from within the group, we discover how the other immortals became this way, their true ages and what they have done with this 'gift'.
