Books of memoirs by Zinaida Gippius "Dmitry Merezhkovsky" and "Living Faces" mutually complement each other, forming a single memoir cycle. If the first, in fact, came out of the diary - this is a detailed recording of events that reflected the intense spiritual searches of the Russian intelligentsia of the late XIX - early XX centuries, then the second is not just and not only memories, but also a book of portraits - psychologically convincing and artistically reliable; it is no coincidence that the main thing in it is not events, but personalities - bright, unique and at the same time focusing important features and trends of that catastrophic time - A. Blok, A. Bely, V. Bryusov, F. Sologub, V. Rozanov, A. Vyrubova, G. Rasputin...