The road from Bukhara to Panjrud is long, especially if a blind old man has to walk along it. Happiness is that he is being led by a guide boy - where can he find the best guide? Step by step they overcome the path assigned to them, and step by step it becomes clear that it is not the boy who is sighted, but the old man; and it is not the guide who leads the blind, warning him against surprises and the dangers of the path, but the blind man who leads the guide, little by little revealing to him the secrets of life. The main character of the novel is the great Tajik-Persian poet Abu Abdallah Jafar ibn Muhammad Rudaki. Andrei Volos managed to create a convex, bright image, endowed with the unique features of a living person, clearly visible in the darkness of the centuries that separate us.