The collection includes two of Ostrovsky's most famous plays, probably The Thunderstorm (1859) and The Penniless (1878). Both plays describe the tragic fate of their heroines. Two broken lives. Two ardent hearts. Two poignant love stories. And two attempts to break out of the vicious circle. During Ostrovsky's time, the "Thunderstorm" produced the effect of an exploding bomb, it was not by chance that the critic Dobrolyubov called her heroine "a ray of light in the dark kingdom." Despite the fact that times have changed, the plays do not lose their relevance. Because hypocrisy, ostentatious virtue, selfishness and selfishness will always resist sincere feelings and real impulses of the soul.