Tatyana Aleksandrovna Pravdina's memoirs introduce the reader to an environment that once seemed an integral part of cultural life in Russia - but is now slipping away. This is the world of the old Moscow intelligentsia. And it was written in the spirit of table conversations that are memorable to the older generation. Tatyana Pravdina comes from the famous Shustov family of industrialists (refresh your memory of Bunin and Kuprin and you will understand what we are talking about). But, unlike many industrialists after the revolution, the Shustovs did not leave Russia. The fate of the memoirist’s parents, Tatyana Shustova and Alexander Pravdin, is inextricably linked with the tragic pages of the country’s history. Repressions, camps, difficult war years - the Pravdin family managed to endure it without breaking. Tatyana Pravdina herself, an orientalist by training, lived and worked among those who were the flower of the Moscow intelligentsia. Here are those whose names have become legends: Alexander Tvardovsky and Mstislav Rostropovich, Orest Vereisky and Eldar Ryazanov, and just good people, friends and family. And of course, a special place in the narrative is given to Zinovy Efimovich Gerdt, for the audience - to a nationally recognized artist, and for Tatyana Pravdina - to her beloved husband Zyama. The author tells about all this to those whom he considers “his own”, with the hope “that there are many of his own” .