People's Artist of Russia Avangard Leontyev performs and comments on Leo Tolstoy's story Hadji Murat and Nikolai Leskov's short story Exorcism. He presents pages of their works, trying to reveal the facets of the Russian character, talk about faith and unbelief, tyranny and servility, cruelty and mercy - in a word, about the most diverse and complex features that Leskov and Tolstoy with compassion and irony endow their characters with.

“I am afraid of Tolstoy’s death. If he died, there would be a big empty space in my life. Firstly, I have never loved a single person as much as him; I am an unbeliever, but of all the faiths I consider his faith to be the closest and most suitable for me. Secondly, when there is Tolstoy in literature, it is easy and pleasant to be a writer; even realizing that you have not done and are not doing anything is not so terrible, since Tolstoy does it all for everyone. Thirdly, Tolstoy stands firm, his authority is enormous, and while he is alive, bad taste in literature, all kinds of vulgarity, impudent and tearful, all kinds of rough, embittered conceits will remain far and deep in the shadows.” Anton Chekhov.

Few contemporary actors have such a fine sense of the literary word and such a deep knowledge of Russian literature as Avangard Leontiev, People's Artist of Russia. He himself defines the genre of his performances as "sounding word". Evenings with Avangard Leontiev may be similar in form to a traditional "recitation concert", but in essence they are something much more: they are also a conversation with an attentive and sensitive interlocutor, offering a fascinating journey into Russian literature, one who knows how to make a word voluminous, alive, strong and exciting, how to discern unexpected meanings on familiar (or unfamiliar - Leontiev chooses not the most famous works) pages better than anyone else. The sounding literature of Avangard Leontiev is an almost tangible reality, so fascinating that the viewer forgets about everything that was left behind the doors of the auditorium.