The book of memoirs of the widow of the famous writer Julius Daniel covers the period of the 1960s–1980s. During the years of “stagnation,” theaters, art workshops, and magazines became centers of attraction for the intelligentsia. One of these magazines was “Decorative Art of the USSR”, where Irina Uvarova worked in those years. She recalls the Sinyavsky-Daniel trial, the circle of the artist Boris Birger (Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Voinovich, actors of the Taganka Theater), Sergei Parajanov, Mikhail Bakhtin, and the theatrical experiments of that time. Irina Uvarova - production designer, art critic, theorist theater In the mid-1980s, together with Viktor Novatsky, she contributed to the revival of the traditional doll nativity scene; in the early 1990s she founded the magazine “Kukart” and had a significant influence on the aesthetics of modern puppet theater.