This book is a short story about people whose destinies are connected with the history of rocketry of the current millennium, mainly about those who laid the foundations of Soviet rocketry on the banks of the Neva in the thirties of our century. The author was fortunate to collaborate with these people in the development and testing of unique rocket engines. You will not find descriptions of rockets here, because quite a lot of books are devoted to them. For the same reason, the author considered it possible to only briefly mention the subsequent generation of creators of Soviet rocket and space technology. This book, modest in volume, absorbed facts scattered in the extensive specialized and memoir literature. (The list given at the end of the book is far from complete.) Primary documents stored in the archives of the Museum of Artillery, Engineering and Signal Corps, as well as in the Central Archive of the USSR Navy, were also used. The author hopes that this book may be useful for employees of numerous museums of rocketry and space technology and considers it a pleasant duty to express sincere gratitude to the reviewer of the book, A. I. Belyakov, for his good advice.