It was a brotherhood of friends in spirit - the fantastic spirit of freedom that suddenly blew over the country in the legendary 60s. They gathered at Ariadna Gromova’s apartment near the zoo—Arkady Strugatsky, the life of the party, Sever Gansovsky, Roman Podolny, Anatoly Dneprov, young Dmitry Bilenkin, and Stanislav Lem on his rare visits from Poland—and to the sound of wild animals screaming outside the window. the strings of Vysotsky (“According to space-time, we are on a starship...”), a frequent guest in the house, over tea or something stronger, they talked about science fiction, thought about science fiction, believed in it. Clever Alexander Mirer, an indispensable participant in gatherings, whose opinion was valued and respected here, spoke aphoristically and accurately: “Fiction is the most honest and observant witness in the court of history.” Because science fiction and reality, especially Russian reality, were inseparable for people in this circle. In science fiction, Alexander Mirer is first and foremost a researcher. The subject of his research work is the manipulation of human consciousness. Capture and enslavement of the mind (“House of Wanderers”), control of the brain from the outside, leading to the collapse of civilization (“I Have Nine Lives”), the conflict between the natural and the imposed (“The Island of Madagascar”)... These topics are always relevant, and certainly never not secondary - although times are changing, the people in them are basically the same as they were yesterday and the day before.