Rasputin is a Russian novelist based in Irkutsk in Eastern Siberia, and a master of the genre known as village prose.

His fiction centers around the conflict of the traditional Siberian village lifestyle, characterized by its family values, unambiguous morality, and strong connection with one's ancestral culture and natural environment, with the modernizing developments of the post-World War II period.

Since the mid-1970s, he has been increasingly involved in writing non-fiction essays and article, protesting against projects he views as environmentally destructive and advocating for the restoration of "Russian national consciousness".

Besides an introductory overview chapters and the conclusion, the book consists of several chapters which are dedicated to particular regions: Tobolsk, the old capital of Russian Siberia; Lake Baikal; Irkutsk, the city on the Angara which the author has long made his made home; Altai; Kyakhta, the 18–19th century entrepôt for China tea trade; and the isolated Arctic community of Russkoye Ustye with its archaic customs and dialect.

[1] An English translation by Margaret Winchell and Gerald Mikkelson was published by Northwestern University Press in 1996.