Isolation

Metro 2033: Isolation is the debut novel by Russian author Maria Strelova, written as part of the Metro 2033 Universe. It was released in July 2016. The seventy-fourth book of the series. The first part of the Beryl City trilogy. The last book released before the Russian-language series was frozen for six months.

Synopsis
They didn't start this war. They were not ready for it. Not fighters who had served in "hot spots" or at least an army "term of service" under their belt. Not survivalists. Not scientists or even working people. Just humanities students and a few of their professors, who had miraculously escaped on the day of the Shoah. Yesterday's children, whose very cloudless "yesterday" turned into a terrible "today" and a completely unpredictable "tomorrow". And yet, they did not give up, even finding themselves in complete isolation. Only trouble never comes alone: the secret, which twenty years of holding by the deputy chief of the bunker, Marina Alekseeva, at any time can turn a nightmarish dream into reality...

Interesting Facts

 * The image of Marina Alekseeva on the cover was embodied by the author herself.
 * The book's cover sparked such a heated discussion in the project group that, coupled with the reaction to Yana Polovtseva's other works, Vyacheslav Bakulin decided to find a new artist for the series.
 * In the original draft, this novel was set in 2032.
 * The prototype of the fictional Institute for the Humanities was the Shuvalovskiy Building of Moscow State University.
 * The images of the main characters are copied from real people.
 * The aim of the author was to show how the humanities would survive in a post-nuclear world.
 * The action of Plastoquinone differs from that described in the book.
 * Except for the forays into the Research Institute of Experimental Pharmaceutics & Frunzenskaya and the epilogue in Mytishchi, Isolation can be called the first truly chamber novel. Most of the action takes place inside a bunker beneath the Institute for the Humanities.