Vysotsky lived and worked in times that “needed” a voice, torn by despair - he rehabilitated the cry in Russian poetry. It was a release of special energy that penetrated into the thoughts and feelings of people, fell into their “not ears, but into souls.” The disease of our time is the lack of demand for eternal truths, those very life-building truths by which they “made life.” And Vysotsky - maybe only Vysotsky - fills this niche. He is the most published and most quoted poet of the late 20th - early 21st centuries. And what’s even more important is that people continue to listen to him and sing him. And in order to more accurately and fully understand Vysotsky’s poems and songs, you need to know how he lived... Valery Kuzmich Perevozchikov’s book is an attempt to imagine and understand the living Vysotsky. Everyone who really knew him has the right to a voice, says the author, a famous biographer of the poet. Time passes, people leave, and with their death that living Vysotsky, whom only they knew, is removed forever. This book, containing exclusive memories and interviews, unknown facts of the biography of Vladimir Semenovich, may cause disagreement among readers and a desire to argue with the authors of the evidence, but this property all the “uncombed” memories.