One of the novels written by Bruno Jasieński (1901–1938), "Chelavek menayet kozhu" (Man Changes His Skin), was published between 1932 and 1933 and quickly attracted the interest of Soviet critics and readers. Jasieński chose as the background of his story an irrigation project carried out in the Vakhsh Valley in Tajikistan. Writing his novel, he used some of the material collected during his several visits to that Soviet republic. Tajik environment helped him to depict the question of rapid social and economic changes triggered by the communist revolution. The final result of his work is a socially and politically engaged socialist realist novel. An image of Tajikistan, that was carefully outlined on nearly six hundred pages, proves that the writer was not only a shrewd observer of the reality but also an inquisitive researcher of the past. However, it seems that his black-and-white sketch of Tajikistan was not his original concept but rather a requirement of the Soviet propaganda. Referring to some Soviet publications, we can easily find different passages clearly condemning the past and glorifying the present. Nevertheless, this simple comparison of the two opposing colours – black and white – served Bruno Jasieński to create a socially and politically engaged work. Of course, the future verified his idealistic vision of Soviet Tajikistan, making constructive criticism of this highly simplified double portrait.