The novel "Embroidery on stolen fabric" is the story of Cinderella from the hinterland, who grew up in a family hell, where the father is aggressive and drunk, and the mother cannot protect her daughter and herself. Grandmother, a village healer, gives the heroine the secrets of traditional medicine, a healing gift and an indomitable character. Fifteen-year-old Valentina studies at the regional center for a masseuse and gets married in Moscow. Unsuccessful marriages and a humiliating affair with the director, force her to earn money at the massage table for her own apartment. Valentina attends an esoteric university, takes her mother from the province, adopts a drug addict girl, opens her office and accidentally gets on television. In Ostankino, she unexpectedly meets a former minister with whom she fell in love many years ago, and the social elevator rushes Valentina to the very top. Life is so accelerated and complicated that Valentina feels as if she is always acting in a movie, playing someone else's role. The action of the first part of the novel covers the period from the late fifties to the nineties…