One day, fourteen-year-old Ivan meets a remarkable girl, who persuades him to jump into an ice-cold river in the middle of winter. Believing that this is his chance to pull off a great coup – didn’t he overhear the two teenagers whispering about treasure? – a nasty, little crook jumps in after them, his brother in tow. The policeman Peter Bunny – whose surname is a general source of mirth – sees an opportunity to prove his bravery, once and for all, and he too plunges into the icy water. Instead of contracting hypothermia, these crazy five discover The City with the Blue Door, a giant horse answering to the name of Terminator, who can change colour from black to white in a hoofbeat, the terrible dragon Smej Gorynitsch and – last but not least – the silver-grey wolf, without whose help all would be lost.
»›The City with the Blue Gate‹ invites us into the world of Slavic folk tales. Anna Dankowtsewa skilfully interweaves the real and the fictional, creating a novel that has what it takes to hold young readers in its spell from the first to the very last page.«Eselsohr
»A homage to the Russian folk tale. A riveting novel in which to immerse oneself - like Ivan in the Moskva.«Frankfurter Rundschau