The Tsar of Love and Techno

“Most censoring, of course, is done by publishers.”

To justify his actions, Markin minimizes his role in censoring images by shifting part of the cultural and societal blame to editors who also change words or revise the author’s original intent. As these words are in a short story collection, Marra seems to be breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader directly here.

“What you believe to be true is a small muscle that exerts its strength only inside your head.”

This is a response from one of Markin’s investigators to Markin’s insistence that he is innocent. The truth doesn’t matter, but rather what the powers that be deem to be in their best interest matters: truth is subjective. This quote develops the collection’s theme of “Truth, Deceit, and Betrayal.”

“Whatever pleasures or punishments that await in the afterlife, if there is one, must feel fainter than those that fill any given day here on earth.”

At this point, Markin has lost sight of anything beyond his immediate reality. When his Polish tutor shows him kindness, Markin impulsively tells her that he loves her. Here, Markin is still able to find joy in this small moment.

“You might question a belief that so readily betrays its believers.”

As Markin speaks in code to the seminarian who may or may not be real, he despairs that his belief in Communism is the only thing he still can control, and yet this belief is completely pointless in his situation. The quote above is the seminarian’s reply, a brief yet powerful refutation of the Communist party’s methods.

“Our children forever changed our relationships with our mothers. Pity replaced the mild contempt with which we had previously regarded them, and we loved them as we never had before, as we could only love ourselves, because despite our best intentions we had become them.”

Life for women in Siberia was never easy, and now as daughters become mothers, they gain a new sense of gratitude, and most importantly, love, in this ode to the women who have survived everything imaginable. Interestingly, this quote appears in Galina’s story of success.

“Teenagers yearn for freedom; adults yearn for security.”

As life becomes more complex for the collective narrators in this story, where death and disease become increasingly more real, the women realize that the advice of their parents had value, and the freedom they so desperately wanted as teenagers paled in comparison to the guarantee of stability: a roof over your head, and food on the table.

“Mainly, we talk about our children. How they infuriate us; how they make us ache; how our fear of failing them startles us from our sleep.”

After Galina’s fame and wealth collapse, the collective narrators of the story resume ordinary lives. Their vicarious experiences through Galina are now a memory from the past. In a story all about the interconnectedness of family generations, the women share what matters most to them—their children.

“We wonder what stories our grandchildren will tell of us and if their stories will sound at all like ours.”

This is the rumination of women who wonder how much society will change, just as they have seen their nation revolutionized and turned upside down during their own lifetimes. The quote also speaks to the importance of stories for developing a personal history; a poignant note in a collection that spans generations.

“Three months earlier, the Interior minister told me his idea. The proposition was ludicrous, but I listened with blank-faced complacency I had perfected throughout my twenty years as a public servant.”

The premise of this story is established shortly after this passage. Ruslan, the story’s protagonist, is at this point completely immune to the absurdism of his role. He has grown accustomed to the ridiculousness of life in Grozny, but he goes on carrying out his responsibilities, one more cog in the machine.

“Lying here in bed, you nearly forget the falling rockets, the collapsing museum, the air of the clean sky impossibly distant, the cinder blocks shifting like ice cubes in a glass.”

Ruslan shares an intimate moment with Nadya, and like so many other characters in these stories, escapes only momentarily into a hypothetical world, where the violence that has ravaged through Russia is only an idea, a non-reality.

“You nearly forget the many times you have warned her of monsters as though they are a people apart: lurking beyond her doorway, ready to prey on the blind and vulnerable.”

Ruslan is protective of Nadya to the point where anyone outside of the intimate world they share is a monster ready to attack them. Ruslan has already dealt with the tragic loss of his wife and son, so while monsters may not be real, the horrors that afflicted Chechnya certainly are. Ruslan’s mindset develops the theme of “The Lasting Effects of War”

“The megalopolis in his mind has quieted to a country road.”

As Kolya works with the Danilo in the field, his violent past subsides, leaving him only to his simple work. He may have an infinity of demons and ghosts in the closet, afflicting his mind and casting a vast shadow on his conscience. The simplicity of his work is able to quiet his thoughts, at least temporarily.

“Average male life expectancy in Kirovsk hovers somewhere in the high forties and while elderly men aren’t mythical creatures, they aren’t quite of this realm.”

Death has swept over Russia, over Chechnya, and over all the characters in these stories. As Danilo and Kolya are held in captivity by the old man, the entire scenario becomes surreal given how healthy the old man is. This quote points again to the severe consequences of war and further develops the theme of “The Lasting Effects of War.”

“I’m sorry,” Kolya says after a long, uncomfortable moment staring into the ashtray of honey to avoid the old man’s eyes. It hits him that this is the first time he’s ever said those two words in relation to a killing. And he had nothing to do with this one.”

Kolya’s remorse and sadness after hearing about the death of the old man’s daughter and grandson are a rare glimpse of compassion after his life turns into a series of questionable choices and criminal acts. Ironically, Kolya will go on to die in the same field where the man’s family died. Kolya’s empathy here makes the murderer a sympathetic character.

“There's nothing quite like the sight of two dozen half-naked octogenarians. We enter the stage of life as dolls and exit as gargoyles.”

Alexei recounts watching elderly people swim in the lake where his family would share their fondest memories. His humorous observation here on the octogenarians swimming sets the tone for the anecdote on his family. The quote also speaks to the corruption of children; we enter as innocent dolls and die as evil gargoyles.

“Everything large enough to love eventually disappoints you, then betrays you, forgets you. But the things small enough to fit into a shoebox, these stay as they were.”

Vera looks through a shoebox filled with letters from her daughter and mother. The letters are extensions of the people, but the people themselves are broken and flawed. The letters s are perfect, pristine as historical artifacts.

“A mother comforts, a mother cleans. A mother gives when any reasonable person would deny. Life might affix any number of labels to Vera- Russian, pensioner, widow, daughter- but when she looked to her washed-out reflection in the bathroom mirror, she saw only Lydia's mother.”

More than any other role, in the final moments of Lydia’s life, Vera sees herself as her mother. Her daughter has moved halfway across the world in search of a better life, and ironically, Kolya murders Lydia when Vera is most keenly aware of their relationship.

“In the flash there's no final thought, no final reflection, just the breath carried from her body on the back of the bullet.”

This is the moment where Kolya debases himself by murdering Lydia, an acquaintance of the only woman he has ever loved, Galina. This act of murder, ironically, is what catalyzes the events in Kolya’s own life. Furthermore, as Lydia does not have any recorded final thought, her death serves as a juxtaposition to “The End,” as Kolya has the space of a story to peacefully drift into death by means of a meaningful childhood symbol, his father’s space capsule.

“To say he felt guilty would ascribe to him ethical borders that were lines on a map of a country that no longer existed.”

After Kolya murders Lydia when she discovers his drug packaging at her mother’s house, he returns home and feels nothing. Whatever has brought him to this place, where guilt and regret no longer exist for him, it has dehumanized him. Whether or not he is in a state of denial, Kolya’s conscience has left him, as is the case for many other characters in these stories.

“You need to pretend you’re a man and then you will become one.”

Vladimir spouts off several one-liners as advice to Sergei in an effort to quickly and haphazardly teach him his ways, especially after Vladimir misses much of Sergei’s life due to his jail sentence. This aphorism applies to many of the male characters in these stories, however, as they struggle and falter in their journey toward understanding who they truly are.

“Why are children doomed to remain beautiful to their parents, even when they become so ugly to themselves?”

As Sergei tries to maintain a normal life after Kirill shoots him in the knee, his father Vladimir looks on with pity and compassion. Despite his own failings as a parent, he still manages to love his son. This quote is representative of so many of the other parent-child relationships throughout the book, where even stronger than this bond is one simple instinct: the instinct to survive.

“Ruslan squinted into the liquid shimmer of sunlight at the horizon. There was an explosion. His world had ended. He was still here.”

Years after Ruslan’s wife and son have died, after he has remade his life with Nadya and their young daughter Makka, he is still haunted by the trauma of his past, and the sudden obliteration of his family due to the absurdities of the war in Chechnya.

“What an improbable thing it was to be alive on Earth.”

As Kolya reflects on his family’s day at the beach, memories of loss conflate with memories of joy. This aphoristic statement could apply to so many of the characters in these stories, as a tragic, sudden death becomes more of a probability than a long life.