In N. Ilina’s book, there are memoirs about the difficult fates of Russian people who were pushed out by the revolutionary wave into Shanghai. To the Soviet reader, their lives are known only very little—yet it is interesting and instructive: the necessity to survive in a foreign land revealed character, mobilized human strength and possibilities.
The book also includes stories about our well-known contemporaries—Anna Akhmatova, Alexander Vertinsky, and others.
Natalya Ilina is a person with a sharp mind and her own view of life. She knows how to observe and draw conclusions from what she has seen.