The "Tatar Desert" is a masterpiece of parable prose that had a significant impact on subsequent modernist literature - a kind of life of a young officer who spent his whole life at a distant outpost on the edge of the desert in anticipation of an attack by mysterious barbarian hordes, according to vague rumors, living on that her side. The story of a life wasted in anticipation of action, in the hope and fear that "something will happen."Bizarre and elegant, "The Riddle of the Old Forest", with its light and sad intonation at first glance, refers to genre of a literary fairy tale for adults, however, behind the simple imitation of a folk legend in terms of plot, there is a deep parable about the pernicious confrontation between man and nature.