Having emigrated at the peak of the Brezhnev stagnation, the author found himself in New York at the age of 37. What emigration gave him and what it took away is the subject of reflection in this book. Dmitry Tarasenkov grew up in a Moscow literary environment. His father, a nomenklatura critic, was an iconic figure in the socialist realism system. My son worked for Radio Liberty. Like his father, he was an avid collector of books. I've seen the world, I've known many extraordinary people. Shaking up the kaleidoscope of his life, the memoirist is skeptical of established stereotypes — he does not occupy an evil memory, he shares the details of the world around him "here" and "there" with cheerful surprise, transmitted to the reader.