On these pages will appear Boris Pasternak and Mikhail Bulgakov, Konstantin Stanislavsky and Marina Tsvetaeva, the famous professor of the Moscow Conservatory Heinrich Neuhaus and Stalin's People's Commissar Yezhov, Yuri Nagibin and Bella Akhmadulina, artists Valentin Serov and Robert Falk, academician Andrei Sakharov and Minister of Culture Ekaterina Furtseva and many other – great and not so great – characters. As Vera Prokhorova admitted: “How many lies can be heard about Richter, Nagibin, or all kinds of reasoning about Pasternak, which people allow themselves who have not read a single poem of his. Lying about the great has become commonplace. And I, who had the good fortune to personally know these outstanding people, am pleased to know that I was able to tell the truth about them that I knew.” The publication includes previously unpublished materials, as well as postcards and letters from Svyatoslav Richter.