The cultural dialogue between Russia and America has been going on for centuries, despite all the historical obstacles. Writers and philosophers from both countries closely followed each other's political, social, and artistic experiments. Real and imaginary journeys across the ocean, which they made for this, helped them comprehend the experience of another and better understand themselves. These contacts and fantasies gave rise to unusual convergence of ideas and plots. Rereading the well-known texts of the Russian and American literary traditions from the point of view of the relationship between the two cultures, Alexander Etkind offers their new interpretations. How did Pushkin read Tocqueville's famous treatise, how did the American ambassador enter Bulgakov's novel, and how did the girl from Leningrad influence America's financial leaders? Why are the plots of Nabokov and Pasternak intertwined, and what story is told in the letters of Zinaida Trotskaya?