In ancient Soviet times, the language was habitually pronounced: Lenin and Stalin. This was a legal – ideological – couple. The personal lives of the leaders were tightly closed. Much later it turned out that each of them had their own pair, and more than one. Stalin has Alliluyeva and other women. Lenin has Krupskaya and Armand. The book in front of you contains documentary love stories of the most famous people of the era: from Stalin to Gorbachev, from Marilyn Monroe to John Lennon, from Dostoevsky to Bunin, from Shostakovich to Tariverdiev. Many of the people presented in the book worked in the novel genre. But the most interesting novels are their own lives.