The book of non-fictional prose by the famous philologist, professor at the University of Southern California Alexander Zholkovsky, who lives in Santa Monica and regularly visits Russia, consists of many memoir mini-stories (and several essays) about episodes relating to different periods of his life - about childhood in evacuation, school years and studies at Moscow State University at the dawn of the Thaw, about the semiotic and dissident enthusiasm of the 60s-70s, about the emigrant experience of the 80s and post-Soviet contacts of the last decade and a half. Without sparing himself and others, the author, with humor, sometimes caustic, talks about great contemporaries, prominent colleagues and ordinary acquaintances, about eloquent little details of private, professional and public life and about verbal pearls etched in the memory. A book that sketches a portrait in an elegant and relaxed form of the passing era, addressed to a wide range of educated readers with humanitarian interests.