Few moments in the 20th century so radically altered the direction of Russian history as Nikita Khrushchev's 1956 attack on the cult of Stalin. Suddenly, citizens like the young Moscow architect, Vladimir Azarov, were free to read banned Russian writers and to attend concerts by Marlene Dietrich. These 26 monologues are each devoted to recollecting sunburst moments of freedom, moments of awareness when millions of people were suddenly coming in from the great cold of Stalin's years of terror.