27 January – 3 February 2026
by Boris Akunin
Source: Facebook
27 January 2026
I can hear little bells jingling from far off, but I can’t tell what it means. It feels like I’ve already had 15 years of strict regime. Do they have Alzheimers or something there? Or can there be a double-strict regime?
Any specialists here on translating prosecutor-speech into human?
I’ve had enough of them and their special attention. Whatever.
Source: Facebook
28 January 2026
THE HUNT FOR MISTAKES
There’s a special category of readers who zealously search for (and sometimes, unfortunately, find) mistakes in my texts. In one passage, for example, I had the sun rising from a westerly direction (they calculated it topographically, the nitpickers). In another place a character, both of whose hands were occupied, started doing something with a third.
I now have had the opportunity to experience the sweetness of this kind of hunt for myself. I had a very pleasant time.
For my work I had to check the first volume of War and Peace, and I made a great literary discovery: Lev Nikolaevich, who had many children, turns out to have had quite vague notions when it came to midwifery and gynecology. (True, someone may have already unearthed this mistake and I’m kicking in an open door. But for me, it only just opened. I share it proudly).
And so. Let’s study the chronology.
Prince Andrei brings his very pregnant wife to see his father at Bald Hills absolutely no later than early August 1805, because on 11 October (the date is indicated) Bolkonsky is already with Kutuzov at Braunau, and this is 2200 km to the west. On the roads of the day (bearing in mind that for some of the journey the prince had to trudge behind the army), this is at the very least two months. Meanwhile, in early August the little princess is already walking around with a large belly, that is, she is at minimum in her seventh—okay, maybe sixth—month.
On 2 December, Bolkonsky is seriously wounded at Austerlitz (and by then it would have been time for Liza to give birth anyway). Then our casualty spends time recuperating. Then he slowly trudges halfway across Europe—a Europe at war, moreover. (Why the French let the captive officer of a hostile army go is unclear, but let’s not get distracted. For now we’re working the maternity clinic).
Bolkonsky finally returns to Bald Hills just in time for the birth. THE NINETEENTH OF MARCH 1806.
According to my calculations, the princess carried her pregnancy at least 13 months. That’s how long pregnancy lasts for camels. So that Sofia Andreevna was right when she wrote about her husband: ‘He does not know the woman as a human being’.
(Film clip: It’s Liza now in July 1805, the same as in the very first scene, whereas the poor girl has another eight months to go).
UPDATE When he read this text, Vyacheslav Kuritsyn sent me his new book on Tolstoy’s novel, Glavnaia russkaia kniga [The Most Important Russian Book]. I dove right into it—very interesting. Slava writes there that the neglect of chronology in Tolstoy is a conscious device. (I’m going to use this. Here in the comments a few people have started listing my mistakes. That, just so you know, is also a conscious device in me!).
Source: Facebook
29 January 2026
It’s done. The launch of Ego-Prose is complete. The audiobook has finally come out, too. Now the whole triad is on hand.
From an upcoming piece in Suverennaia Rossiiskaia Vikipediia [Modern Russian Wikipedia]: ‘…In emigration, the writer-foreign agent completely disconnected from the people. Characteristic of the latest period of A.’s works are trans-sense, stylistic viscosity, and extreme egocentrism’.
Yes, friends, I did disconnect. And I’ve done so with tremendous satisfaction.
And yes, it is a very egocentric book.
Remember the joke: ‘What do you feed your husband?’ ‘Oh, nothing special. Whatever I eat, I give him the same’.
So now I’m feeding my reader the same thing as I do myself—regardless of what my audience does or doesn’t like.
Also, the voice is my own. I chose the music myself, too.
[Below] click the link to listen to the whole first novella for free. That’s enough to get an idea of the genre.
Source: Facebook
31 January 2026
FIRST IN SPACE
Everyone knows who the first homo sapiens to fly into space was. But in the family of hominids, to which we belong, Yuri Gagarin was astronaut number two.
The honor of trailblazer goes to this fellow, whose smile is no worse than the famous Gagarin one.
This is the chimpanzee Ham the Astrochimp, who was in earthly orbit on 31 January 1961.
The hero’s life path is this. Born in 1957 in Africa, he was caught as a child in the jungle, purchased by the U.S. Air Force, and added to the crew of chimpanzee-astronauts. Out of 40 candidates, talented Ham was chosen because he was the best at pulling the lever when the blue light went on. He managed this hard task in flight as well.
Afterward, Ham had a long and happy life, in well-earned rest, appearing on television from time to time. He passed away at a respectable age for a chimpanzee and was given a memorial plaque in the astronaut pantheon.
Happy Space Chimpanzee Day, everyone! Pull the levers in time when the light goes on and you’ll be first among firsts.
(From My Calendar)
Source: Facebook
2 February 2026
Here, unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to answer readers’ questions (and they ask them frequently). I have set aside a special time for that. The first day of every month, I’ll be responding on the Babook website. All day I’ll be checking in there periodically and replying.
Vladimir Ilich Lenin teaches us writers: ‘Art belongs to the people. It should put out its deepest roots into the very thick of the broad laboring masses. It should be understandable to and loved by these masses’.
Basically, if anything in my art is unclear, ask (not here, on the website).
Source: Facebook
3 February 2026
VIKNIKSOR AND ELANLYUM
Many of us have probably read The Republic of ShKID or seen the movie. It’s the story of a pedagogical experiment, Leningrad’s Dostoevsky School-Commune, where street kids were raised according to the method of Viktor Nikolaevich Soroki (in the book, Sorokin).
Both Vikniksor (in the movie, played by Yursky) and his wife Elanlyum (in real life, Ella Andreevna Lyuminarskaya) are described in the book with respect and love. The authors, Leonid Panteleev and Grigory Belykh, knew what they were writing about. Both were raised in the commune.
In the process of gathering materials for my ‘pedagogical poem’, my novel Trezorium, among other things I also studied the very interesting ShKID experiment: an emphasis on individuality, teaching through play, reinforcement of any new knowledge through actualization. Soroka was undoubtedly an outstanding pedagogue.
I became interested in the further fate of both the experiment and the experimenter.
Everything about it is in the spirit of the time.
In 1925, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya pounced on Soroka, accusing him of the anti-Soviet education of children, and at this Vikniksor’s directorship ended. In his old age, now after the war, he worked at home with ‘difficult’ children and kept pedagogical notes. When one pupil with developmental problems got her first top grade, Viktor Nikolaevich was very glad and ran out to buy her a ticket to the movies as a reward—and fell under a streetcar. He had poor vision. This happened on Makarenko Street. Imagine.
His neighbors sent off his notes for scrap—he had no family. All his pedagogical discoveries were lost.
In 1941, as a representative of a hostile ethnicity, Ella Andreevna was deported to the North Caucasus. According to some reports, after the occupation and German retreat she left in the wake of the Wehrmacht. What happened to her after that is unknown. It’s been written that she probably perished in the bombing.
Epoch and country determine fates.
Source: Facebook
Translated by Marian Schwartz
