Vera Arkadyevna Milchina is a leading researcher at the Institute of Higher Humanitarian Studies of the Russian State University for the Humanities and the School of Contemporary Humanitarian Studies of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, author of seven books and three hundred scientific articles, translator and commentator on French writers of the first half of the 19th century. In a word, it would seem that he is a respectable person. However, in her new book she moves away from her usual role and steps into an unexpected genre, for which she has come up with a special name - memoirs. Memoirs are not a detailed, serious story about one’s own life from birth to adulthood and/or old age. This is a series of short and usually funny sketches. The heroes of the “memoirs” are serious and famous people: Mikhail Bakhtin, Georgy Knabe, Vladimir Toporov, Omri Ronen and others. But they all appear from an unusual perspective. And besides, here are stories about how people bought and “got out” books in Soviet times, about how Soviet censors fought against sedition, about the French who came to the Soviet Union, and about Jesuit Slavists who taught Russian in France. The main character of the book is language and the language game. Most and best of the stories told are about words - spoken, heard, printed, appropriate and inappropriate, accurate and inaccurate, humorous and serious.