About the book: 2023 / Peter Spiridov, who managed to experience all the hardships of captivity among the rebellious highlanders, does everything possible and impossible to help Zina Balkashina, kidnapped by a gang of robbers. Meanwhile, the command of the Russian army stubbornly strives to suppress the rebellion of Imam Shamil - one after another, despite desperate resistance, the mountain villages, turned by the rebels into seemingly impregnable fortresses, surrender. The author of this book, first published in 1903, died in hospital from his wounds received on the battlefields of the First World War.