The article analyses the writer’s concept concerning the opposition between the capital and the province as two models of national behaviour, character, and everyday life based on B.Akunin’s project “Provincial Detective Story, or the Adventures of Sister Pelagia”. The article traces out the movement of the author’s artistic ideas in his trilogy (“Pelagia and the White Bulldog”, “Pelagia and the Black Monk”, “Pelagia and the Red Rooster”), and analyzes the methods of representation of capitalness (imperial arrogance and devilry) and the province (Russianness and faith).