Lydia Chukovskaya's book about Anna Akhmatova is not a memoir. This is a diary, notes for oneself, following a living trace of events. The notes clearly show signs of Akhmatova’s life, her circle of friends, her personality traits, and the nature of her literary interests. The records were kept “during the terrible years of the Yezhovshchina.” Lydia Chukovskaya's husband was shot in prison, Anna Akhmatova's son is awaiting a verdict in prison and receives a "sentence." It was during these years that Akhmatova created her “Requiem”: she wrote down poems on scraps of paper, gave them to Chukovskaya to remember, and instantly burned them. Work begins on “Poem without a Hero.” And after the Yezhovshchina, war... The “Tashkent Notebooks” by Lydia Chukovskaya is published as an “Appendix” - a reliable, detailed diary about Akhmatova’s life in evacuation in Tashkent in 1941–1942. The book is intended for a wide range of readers.