High school students transform an ordinary Moscow school into a separate state with its own laws and currency—hundreds. Remember the game of cardboard circles, popular in the 2000s? An unassuming tenth-grader named Ryzhiy becomes a champion and creates a mafia-like structure within the school. Riding a wave of success, he fails to notice his rival, eleventh-grader Dinara. Under the guise of activism for the benefit of the students, she creates her own party and soon becomes a full-fledged dictator. A clash between the two leaders is inevitable. Who will win? And what awaits the heroes in adulthood?

Ivan Bevz's novel 'What We Were Doing While You Were Teaching Us How to Live' is about power and its temptations.