The Heraldic Pillar

The novella “The Heraldic Pillar” (1991) describes the author’s journey through the lands of Kaluga and Oryol. V. Rotov noted: “In its spirit, in its calm and capacious depiction of the tragedy of the Russian hinterland, in some genetic faith in the strength of the Russian people’s spirit, this book seems to me the first thawed patch in the snow-covered expanse of our timelessness… The author sternly peers into Russian reality, grown quiet beneath the junk of decrepit ideas, among the ruins of constructions and restructurings… He peers and reflects. And invites us to look more closely and reflect. Not always gently and delicately. Sometimes insistently. And at times he even shakes us painfully—wake up already!”