“If a person wants to understand at least something about the life of an entire generation of Russian people, then called Soviet people, even several generations from the mid-1950s and almost up to our time; about how they were structured, how they lived their youth and, in a sense, where they went; what they thought, what misconceptions they had, tastes, and so on, then you need to read Aksenov. To paraphrase a well-known expression, Aksenov is an encyclopedia of Russian life. A man who not only recorded three generations of us - Soviet and then Russian townspeople - but also to a large extent created us" - this statement by Alexander Kabakov most accurately characterizes the works of Vasily Aksenov that make up this volume.