Oleg Khlebnikov created a book that he himself called a novel in poems. It turned out like life. As David Samoilov said more than twenty years ago, “Oleg Khlebnikov’s poems contain a picture of the world.” The fate of the lyrical hero (he is unlikely to differ much from the author) and the fates of the people around him take shape against the backdrop of Russian history. Yes, they themselves are this story. And that very inner circle whom the author considers brothers - Yuri Shchekochikhin, Alexander Aronov, “Tolik, Andryushka, Pashka”... And neighbors in the poem “Pavlenko Street” in Peredelkino: Boris Pasternak, Korney Chukovsky, Bulat Okudzhava, Arseny Tarkovsky, Joseph Brodsky , Andrei Voznesensky, Evgeny Yevtushenko - “And the word friend / together with father and son / made up the trinity...”