Reforms and reformers, successes and failures of the reconstruction of the country, the price of transformations - these are the main topical topics of this book. In Russia, with its centuries-old historical tradition, the problems of the long and recent past have the ability to "manifest" in modernity. The state structure of the country, the relations of the center and regions, the experience of living together in one state of peoples distinguished by cultural and religious traditions, the combination of centralized power and local self-government is not a complete list of questions that have remained relevant for centuries and to which the authors of the book tried to answer.