Sakhalin, a Japanese lighthouse, and the illusion of reality
Evgeny Rudashevsky's “The Delusion of Aniva” — a novel about the desire to find truth and the temptation to abandon reality
Evgeny Rudashevsky is a writer, journalist, and traveler who consistently builds his novels for teenagers around real spaces with rich history and cultural memory. In his interviews, he has repeatedly emphasized that he strives to personally visit the places of future action to feel their atmosphere, smells, and rhythm of life. At the center of the writer's new novel “The Delusion of Aniva” is the Sakhalin lighthouse, where, by the way, Rudashevsky also traveled and managed to live for three days. The literary critic of Realnoe Vremya, Ekaterina Petrova, tells us what kind of book this turned out to be and how it transitions from a detective plot to Lovecraftian cosmic horror.
Following the trail of the disappeared
“The Delusion of Aniva” by Evgeny Rudashevsky is a continuation of the author's adventure cycle “The Archive of Isis.” However, the novel remains a standalone work that does not require familiarity with the previous books in the series. The publisher's annotation presents “The Delusion of Aniva” as a story investigating mysterious disappearances connected to local myths, historical documents, and fantastic hypotheses. But gradually, the detective intrigue grows into a philosophical reflection on memory, the price of knowledge, and a person's ability to distinguish reality from illusion.
Fifty years ago, two lighthouse keepers disappeared without a trace at the Aniva lighthouse. The official investigation established that the men died at sea. However, their wives claimed otherwise: the keepers had not left the lighthouse. Decades later, the situation repeats itself: at Aniva, historian Mikhail Tyurin disappears, followed by young archaeologist Pavel Davletshin, who worked at the antique shop “Isis.” His girlfriend Sonya flies to Sakhalin, checks into the “Silver River” hotel, where Pasha had stayed before her. The girl studies his belongings and documents, learns about a stolen museum diary of Japanese keeper Takashi Yamamoto, contacts a certain Sergei Nepisaliev, and gradually reconstructs the route of Pasha's investigation.
“The Delusion of Aniva” clearly displays all the features of a detective novel, but the trip to the village of Novikovo in search of Pasha sharply changes the atmosphere. Reality becomes increasingly unreliable, and the investigation leads the heroine to the very lighthouse where all the narrative timelines converge.
In the second half of the book, Evgeny Rudashevsky systematically destroys the familiar picture of the world. In Novikovo, Sonya encounters strange residents, begins to doubt her own perceptions, and the boundary between memory, dream, and reality gradually disappears. The central place in the book is occupied by the Delusion — an artificial reality created by the mysterious Shard. One of the characters explains what is happening:
— Everything around you is a hallucination.
This phrase changes not only Sonya's perception but also the entire structure of the novel: the story of searching for a missing person turns into an exploration of the nature of human consciousness. As they approach the lighthouse, the investigation stops answering the question of where Pasha is and increasingly asks whether one can trust their own perception of the world at all. The narrative then turns into an adventure novel with a journey through Sakhalin, searches, and an expedition to the Aniva lighthouse, and closer to the finale, it goes beyond earthly history when the Shard appears — an ancient force connected to other worlds.
All the characters in the book seek truth, but each understands it in their own way. Sonya is looking for the missing Pasha, Pavel seeks to uncover the lighthouse's mystery, and Mikhail Tyurin tries to understand the very nature of reality. At the same time, Rudashevsky turns the investigation into a kind of archaeology of memory. The history of Japanese Karafuto, Soviet Sakhalin, and modern Russia is composed of diaries and human fates. Takashi Yamamoto, Sergei Nepisaliev, and other secondary characters become keepers of memory from different eras.
An island on the border of worlds
Sakhalin in the novel lives by its own laws and constantly keeps the characters on the border between different worlds. Rudashevsky shows that the island's history does not disappear but layers upon itself. Each new era erased the traces of the previous one. This idea is confirmed by the story of one of the characters' families — Fedya's. It intertwines the fate of exiled settler Grigory Ivanovich, his Ainu wife Pakha, Japanese Karafuto, Soviet power, and modern Sakhalin. Pakha twice refused to leave the “land of her ancestors," and her great-grandson gathers the memory of several eras into a single family narrative.
The island does not allow one to forget any of its past lives. The novel constantly features Ainu, Japanese, Russians, and Koreans, and alongside them exist the convict past, Japanese heritage, Soviet industrialization, and modern desolation. Sonya's first impressions are also formed not from landmarks but from fog, rain, grayness, and a feeling of abandonment. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk seems faded and almost ghostly to her. This atmosphere affects all participants in the story more than any explanations. Sakhalin sets the mood, guides the heroes, and becomes a full-fledged participant in what is happening.
All roads in the novel gradually converge at one point — the Aniva lighthouse, which was built by the Japanese in 1939 on Sivuchya Rock near Cape Aniva according to the design of engineer Shinobu Miura. The lighthouse was erected on one of the most dangerous sections of the coast, where frequent fogs, strong currents, and underwater rocks constantly threatened ships. Rudashevsky reproduces the tower's structure in detail: nine floors, a weight system, a mercury mechanism, and Japanese engineering solutions. These details make the fantastic story convincing even before the Delusion appears in it.
The closer the heroes get to the lighthouse, the more its familiar meaning changes. Usually, a lighthouse shows the way and promises salvation, but in “The Delusion of Aniva," it does not lead out of the darkness. On the contrary, it becomes a place of delusion and danger, a kind of passage between reality and the Delusion. That is why all the plot lines of the novel lead to it. The keepers disappear here, Yamamoto's story begins here, Mikhail Tyurin's investigation leads here, and Pasha and Sonya strive here.
The price of illusion and freedom
Sometimes the most terrible trap looks like the fulfillment of all desires. This is precisely how the Delusion is presented — the main symbol of the novel. It simultaneously turns out to be an illusion, a dream, a protection, and a trap. A person moves into their ideal fictional world where pain, loneliness, and loss disappear, but along with them, the connection with reality gradually disappears. The Delusion replaces reality.
Rudashevsky reinforces this image with modern associations. The world of the Delusion is made up of separate fragments, “patches” gaps itself, creates artificial inhabitants, and resembles a simulation. It is no coincidence that one of the characters, Zemlyakov, tells Sonya in detail about Nick Bostrom's hypothesis, according to which the universe may turn out to be an artificial model, and the surrounding world is merely a “virtual space-time bubble.”
Later, the heroes notice that “the Delusion tears” and then restores itself again. The source of this artificial reality is hidden by the Shard — a cosmic artifact that whalers in the early 20th century called the “Shard of the Green Sky” and the Japanese called the “wasp's nest of celestial metal.” It is this that attracts researchers — Yamamoto, Tyurin, Pasha. But each new discovery only brings them closer to catastrophe. At the same time, the origin of the Shard remains unknown. The novel deliberately does not explain its nature completely, so the artifact retains its otherness and unknowability, and fear is generated not by a monster but by a person's encounter with the infinity of the unknown.
When the mystery is finally revealed, the struggle is already for the right to return to reality. The Delusion offers a world without pain, fear, and loss but requires giving up the freedom of choice. The most important idea of the finale sounds different: evil does not force anyone. It merely offers to stay. A person fights, resists, and then gives in. Illusion turns into voluntary slavery. Rudashevsky does not put a final period in the ending. The novel concludes, but the question of the boundary between reality and its perception remains open.
The story of the mysterious lighthouse gradually turns into a story of human choice. “The Delusion of Aniva” is a book not so much about an ancient artifact and mysterious disappearances as about the search for truth in a world that constantly offers to abandon it in favor of a convenient illusion.
Publisher: CompassGuide
Number of pages: 368
Year: 2026
Age rating: 16+
Ekaterina Petrova — literary critic for the online newspaper Realnoe Vremya, host of the Telegram channel «Булочки с маком».