On November 8th (21rst old calendar), the Feast Day of the Archangel Michael, in the Year of Our Lord 1979, three men venture into the forrests of the Urals. They are Aleksandyr Lebedev, a colonel of the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs); Aleksandyr Lebed, a Colonel of the VDV (Airborne Troops) and an artist Ilya Glazunov. They are being led by an old monk through ancient forrest tracks where modernity has never followed. To avert all suspicions and the eyes of the KGB each man is on holiday or furlough.
They find a monastery, an ancient monastary where the monks have lived as they have lived since it was founded by old Novogorod's princes. As far as the men could tell no red commissar had ever even known this place existed and the bearded men who inhabit this place stand on an island in time.
'Come.' The old monk asks in a most grandfatherly manner as he leads the men into the monastery itself.
Nationalists to a man the three revel in the old icons of a bygone Russia of saints, warriors and Czars. It is this very legacy that led these men and many others to join the ultra-nationalist Pamyat secret society.
Within the walls the other monks avert their eyes, they know their existence hangs by a thread and are not aware that the days when Lenin and Stalin persecuted the Church are behind them. But the monk is not so slow for his age and will quickly take them to a lonely hut away from the main cluster of buildings.
'Long live the Czar.' The monk says tapping on the door and kneeling, the others instinctively remove their hats as the door opens.
A youth, no older than fifteen opens, he is tall for his age and handsome, although in a lean and effeminate but patrician way, with thick brown hair and pale green eyes.
'Gentlemen.' He greets them, wiping blood from his hands with a dirty towel.
'Meet Grand Prince Afanasiy Mikhailovich Romanov, great-grandson of Grand Prince Mikhail Aleksandyrvich Romanov...' The monk announces.
'The missing Prince...' They say as one, the three men remembering tales of how Grand Prince Mikhail has simply "disappeared" during the Russian Revolution and how the more supersitious peasants of Russia believe that Mikhail will one day return to battle the Soviet Union and lead Russia against a coming antichrist.
As they enter the hut, full of icons and the furs of hunted animals Grand Prince Afanasiy returns to skinning the bloody deer on the thick wooden table. His mother, Daniyela, of a cadet house of the Ruriks who ruled as minor princes nearby, gets up to greet the men and rushes off to brew some tea.
'So it is time?' Grand Prince Afanasiy asks, his back to the men as he runs his knife under the deer's skin, a devilish Cheshire grin on his face.
'Soon...' Colonel Lebedev answers.