The growing interest in linguistics to the personal orientation of the narrative determined the attraction to the study of its manifestations in the memoir genre and the appeal of the author of this article to the “Notes of the designer-gunsmith” by M. T. Kalashnikov, a multi-talented, creatively thinking person. The question of the speech embodiment of the information structure in the memoir genre is raised. The article deals with metatext tools that perform a number of functions in this genre, realizing the author's control over his speech. Classification of metatext means by structural features is offered: three groups of metatext means in the considered memoirs were allocated. The main attention is paid to the observation of the functioning of metatext means in interaction with the compositional components of the text - passages (V. A. Plungyan), each of which has a special discursive function. The results of the study show that in the memoir genre there are stable tendencies to the formation of certain s