Аннотация:The text of the chief researcher of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who was hired by the Institute of Philosophy at the end of 1980 and was the secretary of the institute committee of the Komsomol in the first half of the 1980s, tells about the fate of the “generation of the eighties” who came to Russian philosophy in the critical era of the new, on this time Gorbachev's, “thaw”. The author recalls the upbeat and inspiring atmosphere of those years, numerous (and previously completely impossible) scientific and creative initiatives of the institute youth of the perestroika and the first post-Soviet years. The author shares his memories of his teachers and mentors, as well as his young friends and colleagues, who now make up the “color” of the Institute of Philosophy.