With enemies like that, who needs friends! Five short stories about tough women and meek men, about the battle for daily bread and life as a millionaire, about the loyalty of gentlemen and about hate as the flipside of love. A painter living with her little granddaughter Sasha in a country cottage has three enemies: Anka, the housekeeper, who cooks for the granddaughter but never has any food left over for the painter when she emerges, exhausted, from her studio; Tanka, her father's second wife, who is trying to thwart what little contact the father and daughter still have left; and Wanka, her neighbour, who took it on his own authority to move the garden fence. To the painter's disadvantage of course. These three people would make her life hell – if she did not have her art, her dog and her granddaughter to love. But when her enemies drop out of the picture one after another, the painter realises that something important has gone with them.

Who says that true love only comes once in a lifetime? Someone must have. But they were wrong. Ada's grandparents had to keep their aristocratic origins a secret in the Soviet Union, but still managed to hold onto their principles, along with some of the family jewels. Ada's mother is a gifted singer at the Bolshoi Theatre. And Ada herself? Ada had no clearly defined talents, apart from the talent of pleasing people. Everyone liked her, without exception: young and old, clever and stupid, cats and dogs, military and bureaucrats. And Ada herself didn't discriminate; she just wanted to love and be loved, nothing more. The times change: Perestroika makes its entrance; the Soviet Union disintegrates, the era of Mafia-like capitalism dawns. But Ada is still Ada – even though the objects of her affection change. Whether a man is a KGB agent or a dissident, Ada always loves him for who he is beneath that. This is the story of a woman who never stops believing in happiness.

The young actress Nonna and her director Zarenkov were an attractive couple even if he was twenty years older than she was. It could have been a remake of Pygmalion. But »after all, Dr. Higgins did not have a mother-in-law.« A mother's love is something beautiful, but when a mother gets involved in the love life of her grown-up daughter, it becomes a problem. At the latest when her mother says after a secret meeting with the ex-wife of her future son-in-law: »Just what I was afraid of: He is a big mouth and a ladykiller«, things can become critical. And when mummy also manages to move in with the freshly married couple, love's terror is on the menu, because after all, a mother only wants the best for her child. Four stories about all kinds of love: motherly love, charitable love, erotic love, and romantic love.

Vera is an actress: blonde, blue eyes, as slim as a young birch tree. She looks delicate, but she is tough. Tough enough to survive the Siege of Leningrad when hundreds of thousands of people starved to death. In the Moscow theatre she plays mainly supporting roles, simple Russian girls. And her wants are simple too: enough to eat, a warm corner and love. And she finds all of this when she meets Alexander, ten years her junior, and an aspiring film producer. It's true that he hadn't wanted her to give birth to their son, but even so, they are almost a real family. Until Lena comes into their life: a screenplay writer and actually anything but a femme fatale. Vera, Alexander, Lena – a love triangle. But at its centre: Vera.

Mesjazew does not fall in love with other women, for he loves his family and his real wife – music. But then vamp Ljulja intrudes into the idyll and gets the ball rolling until it becomes an avalanche. Three stories about love and other infamies.

Ten stories about love: the love of a lifetime, and lesser loves; love that was very nearly missed, unattainable love, everyday and exceptional love.

»The show must go on« – even in the face of professional and personal setbacks. Stories about starlets, nine–day–wonders, would-be artists and true artists – and about love.

The main characters in this volume of stories are all hedonists or would at least like to master the art of living. Like Tamara whose husband, a famous sculptor, starts drinking again after ten years of abstinence. On a business trip to the Ukraine, Tamara meets young Jura who is so completely different from her husband. Should she start a new life with him?

While travelling through Italy, a children's book illustrator called Romanova falls in love with Leonid, an ill-adjusted artist whom she finds so fascinating and enigmatic that she nicknames him Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov woos her and takes every opportunity to be alone with her. But his reasons are not what Romanova thinks they are…Four stories about hopes and longings.

›Shall I say it or not?‹ is the fraught question which accompanies the life of a young woman like a leitmotif. Now a mature woman, she looks back on the many opportunities she lost through her indecision - and when a last opportunity arises she finally takes the plunge. ›I am, you are, he is‹ is the story of an unmarried mother whose whole life revolves around her son. One day, he brings a girl home. His mother does not take to the young woman and waits impatiently for the visitor to leave. Then her son tells her that she is here to stay - if she leaves, he will leave too since he married her a few days previously... ›Kirka and the officer‹ would, in the normal course of events, hardly have got to know each other since Kirka the painter would have been unlikely to have anything to do with such an ideologically minded old fossil who still believes in the uprightness of the communist party. But a postcard that went to the wrong address brings about a collision between two people with diametrically opposed philosophies.