Written in 1944 by the art critic Vsevolod Nikolaevich Petrov (1912-1978), a love story about the war, or a military story about love, by the power of two strangely related feelings — the fear of disappearance and the delight of charm — combines life (an ambulance train wandering between the fronts) and poetry ("perfect and doomed to death" XVIII century) into one, as in Zhukovsky's poem, which gave this story an epigraph. For the first time "Turdeyskaya Manon Lesko" was published only in 2006, military diaries — in 2017. For the first time, this book provides an opportunity to trace the counterpoint of the real, extremely intense inner life of the author and the creative imagination that implements this reality. The publication is complemented by articles by literary critics Igor Gulin and Alexander Zhitenev, written specifically for this publication.

The book has been prepared for publication together with the Galeev Gallery.