Post-apocalypse. But not ordinary. This is an attempt to look at the World of the Zone, the World of Stalker, “from the other side.” For some reason, it was more interesting (and maybe safer) for the Strugatskys to write about the reaction to the alien “picnic” in the world of capitalism and cash. If Soviet scientists were present around the Zone, then, as a rule, in the form of dying victims. The author tried to describe OUR reaction to the "picnic". Maybe because the time has come? Or maybe because now we are surrounded by the same world of thirst for profit and profit, from which we can no longer escape even “to the sidelines.” Here is a text version of the story, which was conceived as an electronic freely distributed publication with illustrations and sound design (The book’s text has been translated from the original language using an artificial intelligence system. In most cases, the translation is accurate and clear, but occasionally there may be incorrect phrasing or individual words left untranslated.