The life of the Tarkovsky family, as well as most Russian families, is full of tragic events: exile to Siberia, death in the Civil War, severe injury of Arseny Alexandrovich, forced emigration of Andrei Arsenyevich. But what distinguished this family, all its generations without exception, was unbending strength of spirit, courage, a heightened sense of honor, and inner freedom. And the main thing is the desire for creativity. To creativity in all its manifestations - in music, theater, literature, cinema. To creativity, through which they tried to find “the person within himself.” Find your own artistic language. We know how successful they were in this from Arseny’s books and Andrei Tarkovsky’s films. The history of this family, which was told by the author of the famous series “Bridge Over the Abyss” Paola Volkova in this book, is an example of the life of real Russian intellectuals, “a direct armorial of their family honor, a direct dictionary of their root connections.”