This city in the east of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was called a castle by the Poles. And the Russians are a fortress in the west of their kingdom. Here East and West converge. In the spring of 1632, a young nobleman, Nikolaus Wrzosek, came here. And in February 2015 - Moscow wedding photographer Pavel Kostochkin. Both of them peer with curiosity at the outlines of the castle-fortress. What awaits them here? Love awaits both: one - for the granddaughter of an icon painter and herbalist, the other - for someone else's bride. And of course, battles and adventures on the streets of Smolensk, in snow-covered fields and impassable forests. Two private stories, intertwining, throw bright flashes that highlight a history that is no longer private - the history of the country. And the legendary chronicle of Radziwill, most likely created in Smolensk and acquired by the heroes of the novel, makes it possible to feel the breath of even more distant times, because it is not without reason that its miniatures are called windows into the world of Ancient Rus'. Well, the black-and-white photographs of Pavel Kostochkin[1] turn out to be windows into the world of our time. And in them, too, the features of that unforgettable Russia appear.