One night a lone traveler gets off the train supposed to take him to the sea. Instead, he finds himself in an illegal mine where scientists-turned-miners, side by side with the inhabitants of a whole underground town, are busy digging coal. Here, the traveler meets his friend, pupil and traitor, the scientist Kolimechkov. As they dig, the bowels of the earth are shaken by an explosion. The traveler and Kolimechkov start off in search of the rock fall, only to end up at an extravagant local wedding in the underground town.

A dark, funny, extraordinary story of Bulgaria here and now, transformed by the journey of a man – a saint or a lunatic – behind whom nothing and no one would ever be the same. In 2019 the title was awarded the Novel of the Year award of the National Endowment Fund 13 Centuries Bulgaria and the Peroto national award for contemporary Bulgarian fiction.