How did the Wild Steppe become blooming Novorossiya - the main industrial and raw material region of present-day Ukraine? Who has mastered this huge edge? Tsars, commanders and engineers who used all the resources of the Russian Empire? Or did Zaporizhzhya Cossacks and runaway Ukrainian peasants spontaneously colonize the steppe? What was the population of New Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century? How and why did the Bolsheviks carry out the "Ukrainization" of New Russia and what did this lead to? Were the events of 2014 the inevitable finale of the evolution of the Ukrainian state or was there an alternative? What awaits Novorossiya in the near future?