The Tsar of Love and Techno

A prevalent concept, woven throughout the stories, is how artists can express themselves, as social and political limitations interfere with their work. In “The Leopard,” the protagonist Markin brings his brother back to life by inserting his face at various ages in other works of art. In the opening line to the story, Markin tells the reader, “I am an artist first, a censor second” (3). This oxymoronic proclamation sets the tone for how art and political oppression interact throughout the rest of the stories. For Markin, art is both his redemption in bringing his dead brother back to life as absolution of his guilt, and his doom, as his work is what condemns him.

Likewise, Ruslan in “The Grozny Tourist Bureau,” paints the silhouettes of his dead wife and son into the landscape of a Zakharov painting. Art becomes a consolation exercise, therapeutic in nature. In painting, Ruslan expresses his pain by inserting his own touches into Zakharov’s art: he paints the image of his family unafraid, as this is how he wishes to remember them. Perhaps the painting soothes his guilt for having been absent during the explosion that killed his family.

While painting is the primary avenue for artistic expression, escape by way of art also appears elsewhere in other forms. Even in Alexei’s mixtapes, he seeks to express himself, a sign that even as his life unravels, he still has a desire to articulate his emotional state. In “Granddaughters,” Galina creates a life for herself inspired by the artistic legacy of her grandmother, a once-in-a-generation dancer. Her artistic aspirations allow her to temporarily escape the cycle of poverty.

From the tragic, borderline pathetic “I love you” uttered by Markin to his Polish teacher in “The Leopard,” to Kolya’s solitary journey into death in “The End,” the male figure is quintessentially lonely. Ruslan, in “The Grozny Tourist Bureau,” spends his nights pondering what has drawn him to Nadya, and if what exists between them is either love or co-dependency. Sergei, in “Palace of the People,” finds neither love nor companionship. Real intimacy exists only as an aspiration, an unattainable dream.

Kolya and Ruslan find love or companionship with Galina and Nadya only as a fleeting, temporary season in a life mostly destined for days and nights of loneliness. When Nadya travels to St. Petersburg, for instance, Ruslan reflects on his own isolated solitude in “The Grozny Tourist Bureau” in this revelatory passage: “[W]hen I return to my flat I’m reminded I am, at the end of the day, alone” (99).

Elsewhere, in “Palace of the People,” Sergei’s desolation indicates that his loneliness has cemented itself as a foundational aspect of his identity. He wonders if somewhere in the world there might be a woman who would possibly come home with him, then quickly deflects and discards the idea when he considers the fact that he’d have to bring her home to his father’s apartment. Only moments later, Sergei’s father confesses to Sergei that he never wanted a wife or child. Thus, the men in this story are either widowed, socially unable to connect with women, or simply too emotionally detached from themselves that they go through life without companionship. Loneliness is a driving force for the men in these stories, which adds both melancholy and irony to them.

From soldiers to bureaucrats to drug dealers to Polish ballerina-spies, war cuts through these stories, destroying lives through literal violence and emotional consequences. In “The Grozny Tourist Bureau,” for instance, as Ruslan struggles to make sense of the bombings in Grozny which have claimed the lives of his wife and son, we see the inexplicable pains that affect so many of the characters throughout these stories. Ruslan is devastated by his loss, unable to match his emotions with corresponding words. Similarly, Galina deals with the loss of Kolya.

In their reflections of wartime violence, the characters throughout these stories fight against their own inability to express outrage for unnecessary deaths. In the story most directly related to war, “A Prisoner of the Caucasus,” Kolya and Danilo are prisoners of war, which becomes the defining characteristic of their identity. Ironically held captive by Ruslan’s former father-in-law, even the possibility of escaping their captivity becomes an absurd notion to them—a hypothetical beyond the realm of reality, as evidenced in this passage:

Escape is a vague, undefinable goodness, and they discuss it abstractly, as they would God. Sure, they could easily handle the old man, but then what? Then they’re just two bootless idiots lost in the mountains. At least with the old man alive, they’re prisoners of war (128).

Whether in prisons, labor camps, or rural hillsides, the men and women in these stories are all in some way connected by violence. In “The Leopard,” it is the oppressive weight of the Communist party that wages war on the citizens of Leningrad, fear and suspicion overtaking the minds of every person without power or authority. In “The Grozny Tourist Bureau,” we see a city devastated by bombings, the physical evidence of its tragedies a constant reminder of the horrific losses that have torn the city apart.