In the late 90s/early 2000s I saw an abandoned narrow-gauge track in the woods along which the locals had ridden on beds with wheels. I wouldn’t have had the imagination to make such a thing up. And if I had made it up, I’d say it was rubbish. But I saw it: a bizarre slice of real life in the taiga. All I had to do was find the right words to describe it.

At the start of the war, two pilots and one poet were seeking Galina’s hand. Such were those times: pilots surpassed poets in both number and capability.

Life is so afflicted by clarity and definition these days that the sensations of mystery and beauty I associated with the mist are even more precious to me.

Wings fluttered down all around. So many wings that it seemed as though the great river herself had come to visit this dark corner from the land of no

WRITER: I am a writer! READER: Аnd I think you’re a piece of shit!

So what, Ionesco, did you turn out to be different from everyone else? Or maybe you’re not Ionesco at all, even?

Did you catch it? What does that smell remind you of, in your opinion? This rose smells of lemons, Spain, and death. She turned around and walked off back to her bench, as though to say, what’s the difference what it smells like?

Knives … I wasn’t prepared for that. To be perfectly frank, I’m scared. My romantic notions of this trip have proven illusory: there is nothing less romantic than the Far North today.

A story by satirical Russian writer Teffi, who at one time was the country's most famous female author.