Short funny, sometimes sad stories about childhood in the Soviet Union. Nothing ruins your life in kindergarten and school more than a good memory... Stories are around us. I realized this quite late. I used to think that the real story is when a noble hero, risking his life, sets off across half the galaxy to save the world from the Terrible Black Eaters from the unknown depths of space, but it turns out that for a real story you don’t need to fly across half the galaxy. It must be strange to hear such words from a science fiction writer? But it's true. Stories are nearby, all around us. And in these stories there is a place for heroism, and laughter, and love, and, alas, Terrible Black Creatures...u003du003du003du003du003d*** All illustrations in the book are photographs from the author’s personal archive, as well as drawings made by him himself and his daughter Vasilisa.