The book “Following the Word” by the famous Russian poet and prose writer Vladimir Aleinikov is unusual both in genre and in its structure. This is the poet’s prose, free, associative, rhythmic, gravitating toward poetry, and at the same time, these are original memories of a bygone era and creative people of a difficult but talented time, about the author’s friends and associates in our domestic underground, one of the main characters which he was in the old days. Among the characters in the book are now widely known artists Anatoly Zverev, Vladimir Yakovlev, Igor Voroshilov, Pyotr Belenok; poets and prose writers Leonid Gubanov, Alexander Velichansky, Genrikh Sapgir, Evgeny Rein, Sergey Dovlatov, Konstantin Kuzminsky, Venedikt Erofeev, Sasha Sokolov, Andrey Bitov and many others; representatives of older generations - Oksana Mikhailovna Sinyakova-Aseeva, famous collector Georgy Dionisovich Kostaki, poet Arseny Aleksandrovich Tarkovsky, poet and translator Arkady Akimovich Steinberg, great watercolorist Arthur Vladimirovich Fonvizin. The founder and leader of the legendary SMOG community, Aleinikov talks about this bright phenomenon of the sixties of the last century. Lyrical fragments alternate with portraits of various colorful people, with stories ranging from amusing to dramatic, forming a multifaceted, epic narrative. It is no coincidence that literary scholars call Aleinikov the Nestor of the Russian underground and believe that his phantasmagoric prose is on a par with the best books of Marquez. The new book by Vladimir Aleinikov will undoubtedly be interesting and useful for modern readers. The publishing layout of the book is saved in PDF A4 format.