All around is deception. Houses stand longer than people.

Victoria Tokareva is a well-known writer and screenwriter, familiar to Russian viewers from beloved childhood films: "Literature Lesson", "Gentlemen of Fortune", "Mimino", "A Dog Was Walking Along the Piano", "You Exist...". Stories and novellas occupy a special place in Tokareva's work, warm and lively, with a soft humor, written in her unique, light, "Tokarevian" language, and with likable characters who sometimes remind us of ourselves. And no matter how life beats and shakes them, burns them with betrayal and deception, they find the strength to withstand the blows of fate. After all, life is unpredictable, and no one knows what awaits them ahead: an ugly duckling sometimes turns into a swan, a broken heart is reborn for a new love, and a girl from a bird factory becomes the wife of a millionaire... The edition includes prose works by Victoria Tokareva, including the stories "Unlucky Fima", "All around is deception", "Bach's Fugue", novellas "Houses stand longer than people", "Seasons" and others.