A result of an essay writing competition and an analysis of answers to questionaire presented to contestants in 1994/95 in Nizhny Novgorod, conducted by an author of a book in memory of his father, a native of Nizhny Novgorod, a writer, and a political prisoner who was exiled in 1979. A book includes twenty essays/testimonials by students whose early life was spent under the rule of communist ideology, and the latest years, in the post-communist Yeltsin era. A snap of a generation caught in transition, ona crossroads of Russian tumultuous history.