A look at life in the USSR from Europe. An autobiography. The author emigrated to Denmark in 1970. This book by Sonya Westerholt is a collection of memoirs about life in the Soviet Union, which reveals personal and historical events through the prism of family stories and cultural context.

The central theme of the book is the encounter with a system that interferes with the personal lives of the characters. The memoirs cover key moments from the author's childhood and youth: the pressure of the KGB, the absurdity of the Soviet bureaucracy, and the everyday realities of communal apartments. The book conveys the atmosphere of the era through family stories imbued with humor, bitterness and memories of heroism and suffering.

The main episodes include descriptions of cunning resistance to power and ironic details of everyday life. The title of the book refers to one of the stories in which a short message informing about the dog's health becomes a symbol of victory over fear and absurdity.