This is a book about to cities - Riga and Moscow, organized around a visit of semi-fictional Muscovite, who comes to Riga and whose host is another semi-fictional character named Marpl. The point is to show the city through the eyes of a stranger and through the eyes of a local, who sees his city as a stranger would, but also as a local person would see it. The other part of thee plot is an analysis of a short story by Ivan Bunin which takes place in pre-revolutionary Moscow. That story, of a couple, is used by the author to look at Moscow during that time, Moscow which Bunin clearly did not know.