Evgeny Finkelstein’s memoirs are dedicated to the Moscow artistic life of the 1980s through
2000s. They are focused on a close-knit community of art collectors and art connoisseurs, especially on Nikolai Khardzhiev and his wife Lydia Chaga. Finkelstein, who is not a professional art critic, had an advantage to capture the specifics of this community’s idiosyncrasies
with the inquisitiveness of a natural scientist. He also notes a major role in these relations,
played by Khardzhiev, a major specialist in the Russian avant-garde, and Chaga, an expert on
Russian graphics of the 20 th Century and a scholar of Dmitry Mitrokhin. Finkelstein's reminiscences are most colorful in the descriptions of his infrequent, but memorable visits to the
house of Khardzhiev and Chaga, and conversations he held with them. His memoirs reflect
the complicated time period at the end of the 20th Century that he managed to record, as well
as to record possible reasons which caused the tragedy of Khardzhiev and Chaga after their
emigration to Amsterdam.