[48] An allusion to a passage in Rimsky-Korsakov's opera. Viktor is referring to the political authorities, perhaps to Stalin himself.
[49] A Tsarist political prison.
[50] A traditional custom: if guests at a wedding party shout, 'Bitter', then the bride and groom have to kiss.
[51] The famous writer was Boris Pasternak, his comrade Osip Mandelstam.
[52] 'Tell me please, what is Makhorka?' (Makhorka is a coarse Russian tobacco.)
[53] A poem in celebration of the wives of the Decembrist conspirators, who followed their exiled husbands to Siberia.
[54] New Economic Policy: a period (192.1-4) of relative liberalization.
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