The lecture on Kuprin's open letters to Pavel Shcherbov transforms an archival find into a lively story about friendship, humor, creative connections, and hidden plots of Russian culture. Through the correspondence found in a hiding place, listeners will see not bronze classics, but people with voices, habits, anxieties, and genuine human intonation. Sometimes the history of literature is changed not by a loud sensation, but by a quiet find - a bundle of letters hidden in an attic, yellowed pages, a long-forgotten hiding place. It is from such an almost detective story that this lecture grows, dedicated to the correspondence of Alexander Kuprin with the artist Pavel Shcherbov. Before the audience will open not only little-known documentary material but also a rare opportunity to see the classics outside the usual school framework - as close friends, interlocutors, and living participants in the cultural milieu of the early 20th century. At the center of the meeting is the book by Alexandra Zhuravlyova "Letters from the Attic. Alexander Kuprin, Pavel Shcherbov. Correspondence 1905-1922", where the complete corpus of their letters is published for the first time. This is important material for both literary history and for a broader understanding of the era. The correspondence allows one to feel how friendly and creative ties were formed, what ideas its participants exchanged, how jokes, irritation, tenderness, and intellectual excitement coexisted in a private letter. Such a conversation helps to look at Kuprin himself in a new light - not only as a well-known author but also as a person who spoke, doubted, laughed, and responded to events around him. Special attention will be paid to the circumstances of the find and to the questions that immediately spark curiosity. How did the letters end up in the hiding place? Why was a revolver lying nearby? How difficult is it to decipher Kuprin's handwriting? How many times did Pavel Shcherbov create caricatures of him? These details make the meeting rich and almost adventurous, but behind the external intrigue lies a more important meaning - the opportunity to restore the human fabric of cultural history through a private document. The lecture will be conducted by Alexandra