About the book: 2006 / Stories of the artist Eduard Kochergin - an amazing story about amazing people who found themselves “at the bottom” in the 1940s-1960s. Children without fathers, holy fools and cripples, beggars and prostitutes became characters in an impressive life canvas, recreated by the pen of the “drawing man”. The son of repressed parents, a pupil of orphanages and special institutions of the NKVD, E. S. Kochergin - People's Artist of Russia, laureate of State Prizes, full member of the Russian Academy of Arts. His stories are a memory of people pushed to the margins of life with their merits and talents. The design of the book uses drawings by the author. On the cover is a photograph of the work of Ivan Kostyl, a Vasileostrovsky street light painter* * *The famous theater artist, legendary set designer Eduard Kochergin wrote an epic of people's life. “Russia!.. Who is the extreme here?” is the question of his entire book. A question for the country where the person is always the extreme. Marina Dmitrevskaya* * *Prose writer Kochergin surprises with his memory. In memory of special conscientiousness and kindness towards the inhabitants of the “bottom”. He turned the St. Petersburg island of Goloday into a kind of Pantheon, where the names of Arishka Porchenaya, Shurka Eternal Kaurka, Gosha Legs with a Wheel are engraved on the sidewalk slabs...David Borovsky* * *On the pages of the “Angel Doll” dozens of Russian types come to life: beggars, blessed ones, soldiers, artists, thieves in law and young punks are heroes with an unfortunate fate and a bright soul - people who, according to the author, will certainly be saved. Every single one of them. “Screen and Stage”“