The first crack in the familiar world
This chapter presents the hero's first radical shift from one reality to another — one of six or seven such episodes scattered throughout the trilogy. But this one, the first, happens "with fanfare," as befits the opening of a gate into another dimension. The sky changes color, passengers vanish with a click, a homeless man turns into a horror melting on the floor of the car, and an old woman turns into a golden-haired beauty. A gentleman in a tailcoat and a lady in a silvery dress step down into a pink desert under a mirrored sky.
At first glance, this is a classic device of speculative fiction — the hero enters a parallel world, a portal opens, the familiar laws of physics stop working. But a literary text from the 1990s cannot be read apart from its historical context. And here the metaphor becomes transparent to the point of indecency.
The country underwent roughly the same kind of shift two years earlier: the flag changed, Soviet citizens vanished, speculators became the elite. August 1991 became exactly that point where reality broke, when the familiar world collapsed with a sound like a quiet snap of the fingers.
The mechanics of disappearance
How people dissolve
Notice the technique of disappearance in the text. First, a homeless man dies in agony on the floor of the car — his body literally melts, dissolves, turns into bubbling slime, then into embers, then into ash. This death is painful, revolting, accompanied by screams and the horror of witnesses. Sores, pus, fingers falling off — a physiological nightmare bordering on body horror.
And then, once the homeless man has completely vanished, another disappearance begins — quiet, almost soundless. "With a sound as soft as the snap of a finger, the old woman sitting on the bench vanished. On the second snap, the girl pressed against me vanished. The man in front of me vanished, the woman to the side..."
Two types of disappearance. The first — painful, frightening, physiologically repulsive. The second — instantaneous, almost elegant, accompanied only by a quiet click. This is not an accidental detail. It's the key to understanding the metaphor.
The disappearance of the Soviet person
In the early 1990s, the Soviet person disappeared in two ways.
The first way — slow, agonizing, physiologically destructive. It's death from diseases that stopped being treated because there was no more medicine. It's death from hunger, when a pension bought half a loaf of bread. It's death from alcohol, because otherwise it's unbearable. It's death from despair, when the old world has collapsed and you neither understand nor accept the new one.
The statistics are merciless: in 1992-1994, mortality in Russia exceeded the birth rate. The country began to die out. Male life expectancy fell to 58 years. People were dying — and dying horribly, like that homeless man on the floor of the car. The body decayed while still alive. Society decayed while still alive.
The second way — instantaneous disappearance. A click — and the person is gone. Yesterday you were an engineer at a factory, today the factory closed, you're nobody. Yesterday you were an officer in the Soviet Army, today there's no army, you're unemployed. Yesterday you were a Komsomol activist, today there's no Komsomol, and all your achievements have become a laughingstock.
A click — and your profession vanished. A click — and your qualifications vanished. A click — and your identity vanished. You thought you were traveling in a familiar direction, and it turned out the car had carried you off into a pink desert under a mirrored sky, where everything is different, where other laws apply, where you understand nothing.
Transformations: from rags to riches
The old woman becomes a beauty
After all the ordinary passengers have vanished, a magical transformation takes place. The old woman, sitting motionless on the bench, "gracefully stood up and threw off the black shawl along with the black cape underneath." Beneath the covering was hidden "a golden-haired woman of great height, made three, four, five times younger."
This is no longer an old woman — it's a monstrous beauty, whose description borders on erotic delirium: "Her beauty is indescribable. I had seen such women only in dreams, and only there could I find the words to convey the stirring glow, the intoxicating radiance. It is impossible to look at her while awake."
Beside her appears "a gentleman in a black tailcoat, a monocle in his left eye, and a cane in his right hand." Snow-white gloves, elegance, cinematic polish. This is a couple out of a Hollywood film, out of a fairy tale, out of a world of glamour and wealth.
They aren't real. They're a set. They're an illusion. But they've taken the place of those who vanished. They are now the main characters of this reality.
Speculators become the elite
Now let's return to the reality of 1991-1993.
Who took the place of the vanished Soviet person? Who became the new masters of life?
Yesterday's speculators, black-market traders, shadow dealers, underground manufacturers — all those whom the Soviet authorities persecuted, imprisoned, branded. People living on the margins of the law, despised by respectable society. They hid in the shadows, concealed themselves behind a "shawl," led double lives.
And suddenly — a click. The regime changed. And it turned out these people had been right. That they understood how life worked. That they knew how to hustle, to procure, to negotiate, to profit. Now this wasn't called speculation but business. Not theft, but privatization. Not bribery, but lobbying.
They threw off the "black shawl" of their marginal past and appeared in all the splendor of the new elite. Raspberry blazers, gold chains, mobile phones the size of a brick, Mercedes and BMWs. Gentlemen in tailcoats and ladies in silvery dresses.
The beauty in the text is described with deliberate lasciviousness: "This was not a woman. This was intoxication, poison. This was passion clothed in a beautiful body." The new elite was likewise intoxication and poison. It got you drunk on promises of wealth, freedom, a Western life. It made you forget everything and throw yourself at its feet.
But the hero notices: "It is impossible to look at her while awake." It's unbearable to look at her not because she's too beautiful, but because she isn't real. She's a simulacrum, a set, a mask fitted over emptiness.
The pink desert and the mirrored sky
The geography of the new reality
The car exits the tunnel and finds itself in a phantasmagoric space. "The car rolled through a desert of bright pink. Dunes drifted past, resembling upturned boats."
Pink is the color of glamour, kitsch, unreality. It's the color of the glossy magazines that flooded into Russia in the early 1990s. The color of advertising, promising a paradise-like life. The color of illusions.
The desert is the absence of life, the absence of meaning, the absence of solid ground underfoot. The dunes constantly shift shape, there's nothing to hold on to, everything is unstable and unreliable.
And above the desert — a mirrored sky. "It reflected what lay below, tinting it in shades of red." Instead of a real sky — a reflection of what's underneath. Instead of ideals, values, higher meanings — just a mirror, showing the same thing that already exists. No upward movement, no development — only the endless reflection of the pink desert.
This is the perfect metaphor for the new Russia. A country with no ideology left, no big ideas, no projects for the future. There is only consumption, copying the West, chasing the simulacra of wealth and success. The sky has become a mirror — reflecting only what's below. There is nothing higher.
The crystal sun
But the most sinister detail is "a stone, blindingly bright as the sun, resembling the sun, almost the sun, but... a crystalline polyhedron, gleaming with the reflected light of a distant lamp not visible from the car."
This isn't a real sun. It's a crystal reflecting the light of an unseen source. An imitation of a heavenly body, a simulacrum, a fake.
In the new Russia, everything was fake. Democracy — fake, just a set for the redistribution of property. Freedom — fake, because without money you're nobody. Wealth — fake, because it was plundered, stolen, taken from the people.
The crystal sun is the perfect symbol of the era. It shines brightly, dazzles, seems to be a source of light. But in fact it just reflects someone else's light. Russia itself, in the 1990s, reflected Western examples, copied foreign models, tried to become "like over there." And what came out was a caricature, an imitation, a crystal in place of a living sun.
Change of flag, change of reality
What changed overnight
On December 25, 1991, the red flag of the USSR was lowered over the Kremlin and the Russian tricolor was raised. It happened in the evening, in the dark. In the morning people woke up in a different country.
Formally, only the flag changed. In reality, everything changed.
The country you were born, studied, and worked in vanished. The borders vanished — the republics became foreign states. The money vanished — savings turned into scraps of paper. The guarantees vanished — free education, healthcare, confidence in tomorrow.
New people appeared — new rich people, new politicians, new idols. New words appeared — privatization, voucher, default, racketeering. New rules appeared — now everything could be bought, everything was for sale, whoever had money was right.
This was a shift in reality. Like in a science-fiction novel — the hero rides the metro and ends up in a pink desert. So too the country — went to sleep in the USSR, woke up in the RF. And this was a different reality, with different laws of physics and morality.
The speed of the transformation
The most terrifying thing is the speed. The Soviet Union didn't fall apart over a century, not over a decade, not even over years. From the August coup to the December dissolution of the USSR, four months passed. A click — and there's no more country.
In the text, this speed is conveyed through a chain of disappearances. The homeless man melts on the floor for a minute or two. Then — click, click, click — the passengers vanish instantly. Then darkness, then light — and already a new reality outside the window.
This is exactly how it felt in 1991-1993. There was no time to make sense of it, to understand, to adapt. Reality changed faster than consciousness could keep up. Yesterday one thing, today another, tomorrow a third.
People didn't have time to readjust. Old skills didn't work. Old values were ridiculed. Old heroes turned out to be villains, and villains — heroes. The world turned upside down, and many couldn't find their footing in this inverted world.
Who remained in the car
The hero, alone
After all the passengers have vanished, the hero remains alone. "With quiet clicks everyone vanished, and I was left alone." This is a key moment. Not a group, not a collective, not a people — one person.
This is the essence of the 1990s transformation. The Soviet person was part of a collective. He belonged to a factory, a party, the Komsomol, a trade union. His identity was collective. "We" mattered more than "I."
The new Russia demanded a different kind of person — an individualist, an entrepreneur, someone looking out for himself. "Every man for himself," "the rescue of drowning people is the drowning people's own business." The collective vanished with a click. One person remained.
The hero of the novel finds himself alone in a car carrying him he knows not where. In exactly the same way, millions of people found themselves alone in a country that was carrying them they knew not where. Familiar ties torn apart. The collective dissolved. You, one on one with the new reality.
The hero's passivity
Notice: the hero does not control the situation. He makes no decisions. He doesn't even try to resist. He just watches, is horrified, tries to understand. The car carries him along on its own, without his participation.
This too is a precise metaphor. Most citizens of the USSR did not choose the collapse of the country. They did not vote for privatization. They did not ask for shock therapy. All of this happened to them, not by their will.
The elites decided, the car moved. The people turned out to be passengers, staring out the window at a changing landscape, not understanding — what's happening, and where they're being taken.
The first shift out of seven
Why break the narrative
The author could have written a realistic novel about 1993. He could have shown the collapse of the economy, crime, poverty, the New Russians, with no fantastical elements at all. But he chose a different path — he introduced fantastical shifts into the text, moments when reality literally breaks and the hero finds himself in another world.
Why?
Because realistic language cannot convey the sense of reality breaking apart. You can describe inflation, unemployment, crime — these are all rational, comprehensible phenomena. But how do you describe the feeling that the world has ceased to exist? That the laws have stopped working? That everything you believed turned out to be a lie?
For that, you need speculative fiction. You need metaphor. You need the pink color of the desert and a mirrored sky.
And this is only the first shift out of six or seven. There will be more. The hero will find himself, again and again and again, in an altered reality. Because the 1990s were a time of constant shifts. Just as soon as you got used to one thing — it was already something else. Just as soon as you understood the rules — they had already changed.
With fanfare
The first shift happens "with fanfare." It's the brightest, the most spectacular, the most frightening. The ones after it will be others — perhaps quieter, more mundane. But the first one has to shock, to stun, to knock the ground out from under your feet.
In exactly the same way, the collapse of the USSR in December 1991 was a shift with fanfare. Other shocks followed — the hyperinflation of 1992, the shelling of parliament in October 1993, the First Chechen War. But the first shock was precisely December 1991. When the country ceased to exist.
After the first shock comes numbness. The hero presses against the window and stares at the pink desert. What else is there to do? Where to run? How to resist? All you can do is watch and try to understand — where am I? what's happening? where am I being taken?
The question at the end
The chapter ends with a question: "Where are they taking us, and how much will the trip back cost?"
This is the question of all of Russia circa 1993. Where are we going? Into capitalism? Into democracy? Into freedom? Or into a pink desert under a mirrored sky, ruled by handsome men in tailcoats, with nothing but shifting dunes?
And a second question — even more frightening. How much will the return trip cost? Can you even go back? Or does the car travel in one direction only, with no way back?
In 1993, many wanted to go back. To bring back the USSR, to bring back stability, to bring back confidence in tomorrow. But it turned out — you can't. The country can't be glued back together. Time cannot be reversed. The car travels only forward, into the pink desert.
And the last line: "Yes! The main thing — I don't have a kopeck to my name. I only planned to go back at someone else's expense. And it looks like I'm not the only one..."
The return will cost money. Nothing will be free anymore. Welcome to the new reality.
Trypophobia and disintegration
Holes in the body, holes in reality
There's a strange, at first glance excessive detail in the text: "Drops of pus hit me. And each drop began gnawing a burrow into my skin! I swear! Trypophobia turned me inside out."
Trypophobia is the fear of clusters of holes — holes in skin, in objects, in any surface. It's an irrational fear of wholeness being broken, of holes appearing in a surface.
The drops of pus from the melting homeless man land on the hero and begin gnawing burrows into his skin. Reality is literally corroding his body. Turning intact skin into a sieve.
This is a perfect metaphor for disintegration. The Soviet Union was whole — cracked, maybe, with problems, but whole. And in 1991 that wholeness was broken. Holes appeared. Small at first, then bigger and bigger. The Baltics fell away. Ukraine and Belarus fell away. The Caucasus, Central Asia fell away. Holes, holes, holes.
And each hole corrodes what remains. Because once disintegration begins, it cannot be stopped. A drop landed — it started corroding. Another drop, another. The wholeness is destroyed irreversibly.
Trypophobia is a fear of disintegration as such. Of losing wholeness. Of your skin, your body, your reality turning into a sieve through which everything drains away.
Thunder and lightning: war in the pink desert
When the gentleman in the tailcoat and the golden-haired beauty step off the car, something strange happens: "Thunder rumbled, lightning flashed. Or maybe it wasn't lightning, and it wasn't thunder. Unclear. But something boomed. Far off, something flared and went out. Then it crashed again."
In the pink desert under the mirrored sky, a war is going on. Or something resembling a war. Explosions, flashes, booms. But the hero isn't sure — what is it? A thunderstorm? Artillery? Or something else entirely, not subject to the laws of ordinary reality?
In the new Russia, a war was going on too. Invisible to most, but no less brutal for that. Criminal showdowns, contract killings, the redistribution of property. People died every day, but it wasn't a war in the usual sense. There was no front line, no mobilization, no official declaration of hostilities.
In the new Russia, a war was going on too. Invisible to most, but no less brutal for that. Criminal showdowns, contract killings, the redistribution of property. People died every day, but it wasn't a war in the usual sense. There was no front line, no mobilization, no official declaration of hostilities.
Somewhere far off, it just rumbled. Flared and went out. Then crashed again. And you didn't know — did this have anything to do with you or not? Was it dangerous, or was it still safe not to worry?
The beautiful people in tailcoats step down into this desert, where a war rumbles. They walk toward it calmly, gracefully, as if to a ball. Because for them this is their native element. War for money, for power, for property — this is their world. In it, they are at home.
And the ordinary passengers — those who vanished with a click — will not survive in this world. That's why they were removed from the narrative. They aren't needed in the new reality.
Cinematic sound and the simulacra of power
The Hollywood aesthetic of power
The gentleman in the tailcoat appears to a "cinematic sound." Not a real voice, but precisely a sound — a sound from a film, overlaid onto reality. He says: "He welcomes you and invites you into his world! Make yourself at home."
Who is "he"? Who's inviting? Who's welcoming? It's not clear. But something else is clear — this is a movie set. This is not a real person speaking real words. It's a simulacrum, an image, a mask.
The new Russian elite of the 1990s was built on Hollywood templates. Tailcoats, tuxedos, evening gowns, restaurants with orchestras, "top-level" meetings. All of this was copied from Western examples, from what people had seen in American films.
But it was an imitation. The gentleman in the tailcoat isn't a real aristocrat — he's a speculator in disguise. The beauty in the silvery dress isn't a society lady — she's yesterday's old woman, who threw off her shawl.
The entire new elite was an imitation. They played the role of the rich, the successful, the influential. But under the costume hid the same thing as always — greed, fear, aggression. Only now it was wrapped in beautiful packaging.
"He" as an invisible power
The gentleman in the tailcoat speaks in the third person: "He welcomes," "his world." Someone stands above these beautiful people. Someone the hero doesn't see. Someone who governs this reality.
In 1993, many people wondered: who really runs the country? Formally — Yeltsin and the government. But behind the scenes? Oligarchs who hadn't yet become publicly known as oligarchs? Western handlers? The security services? Who?
"He" remains invisible. But he invites, he welcomes. He is the master of this world of the pink desert. And the gentleman in the tailcoat is only his envoy, his herald.
Power in the new Russia became invisible. It wasn't clear who was making the decisions. It wasn't clear who was responsible for what. There were only envoys, transmitting the will of an invisible master.
The new passengers: a silent majority
After the beautiful people step off the car, one more transformation takes place: "Passengers, appearing from who knows where, sat down on the benches and stared at the sands drifting past the window."
New passengers appeared. From where? Unknown. From who knows where. They simply materialized, taking the seats of those who had vanished.
And what do they do? They sit in silence. They stare out the window at the pink desert. They don't talk. They don't panic. They don't ask questions. They just watch.
These are the new population of the new Russia. People who filled the void after the Soviet person disappeared. They aren't Soviet — those left with a click. They aren't yet New Russians — those in tailcoats and dresses got off at their own station. They're transitional. In-between. Neither one thing nor the other.
They ride silently in an unknown direction and watch the pink desert. They've accepted the new reality. They haven't understood it, haven't made sense of it, haven't come to love it — they've simply accepted it. Because there's no choice. The car is moving, and you have to ride along.
The structure of the trilogy: repeating breaks
Six or seven shifts
The author warns: this is only the first of six or seven shifts. Reality will break again, and again, and again. The hero will find himself in other dimensions, other spaces, other logics.
Why so many? Because a single break in reality wasn't enough to convey the experience of the 1990s. December 1991 was the first shock. Others followed.
January 1992 — price liberalization. Another break. Yesterday a loaf of bread cost 20 kopecks, today — 10 rubles. Everything saved up over a lifetime lost its value overnight.
October 1993 — the shelling of parliament. Another break. It turned out the new democratic government fired on its own citizens just as the old totalitarian one had.
1994 — the First Chechen War. Another break. It turned out the country hadn't fully fallen apart, and now it had to be glued back together with blood.
1998 — the default. Another break. Just as people were starting to get used to the new economy — and everything collapsed again.
Every break is a new shift. Reality changes, the rules change, the world becomes different. And this happens six or seven times. Until nothing familiar is left.
The first shift as a template
The first shift is the most vivid. It sets the template that the rest will follow. First — something terrible, disgusting, frightening. Then — the disappearance of the old. Then — the appearance of the new, incomprehensible, unreal. Then — the question: where am I? what's happening? where am I being taken?
The following shifts may be quieter. Maybe there won't be a melting homeless man or beautiful people in tailcoats. Maybe reality will change more mundanely, more matter-of-factly. But the structure will remain the same — break, disappearance, replacement, question.
Because such is the structure of the era itself. The 1990s were a time of repeating breaks. Just as soon as you got used to one thing — the next one hit. Just as soon as you found your footing — it vanished. Just as soon as you understood the rules — they changed.
Why the metro specifically
The subway as a space of transit
The shift takes place not just anywhere, but specifically in the metro. This is no accident. The metro is a space of transition, of transit, of movement from one point to another. You get on at one station, get off at another. In between — a tunnel, darkness, uncertainty.
The 1990s were exactly this kind of transit space. The country was traveling from point A (socialism) to point B (capitalism). But what happens in the tunnel in between? It's dark there. It's frightening there. Neither reality's rules apply there.
The metro is also a place where everyone is together. Different people, different fates, different intentions. But all in the same car, all traveling in the same direction, all subject to the same movement of the train. You can't get off in the middle of the tunnel. You can't change direction. You can only ride.
The whole country was passengers on the same car. Some boarded willingly, some didn't. But now everyone is riding. And no one knows exactly where this train is taking them.
The Moscow Metro as an underground city
The Moscow Metro isn't just transportation. It's an underground city with its own rules, its own population, its own atmosphere. In Soviet times, the metro was the pride of the capital — underground palaces, marble, chandeliers, mosaics.
But in the 1990s the metro became something else. Vendors, homeless people, beggars, criminals appeared. The underground palaces turned into an underground jungle, where the law of the strong applied.
So the metro in 1993 is the perfect place for a break in reality. Because reality there was already broken. A beautiful past coexisted with a repulsive present. Soviet grandeur — with post-Soviet poverty.
And somewhere beneath the ordinary metro, rumor has it, runs Metro-2 — a secret system for the elite. Two levels of reality, one above the other. The upper one for everyone, the lower one for the chosen few. Just like in the novel — ordinary passengers vanish, gentlemen in tailcoats depart for their own world.
Conclusion: a metaphor that wounds
This chapter isn't just a fantastical episode. It's a literary trauma, reproducing a historical trauma. A reader who lived through the 1990s will recognize their own country in the pink desert. Will recognize their friends, neighbors, and relatives in the vanishing passengers. Will recognize those who took their place in the beautiful people in tailcoats.
The metaphor works because it's precise. The country really did turn into a pink desert. The sky really did become a mirror, reflecting only what's below. The sun really did turn out to be a crystal that only reflects someone else's light.
And the most terrifying thing is the question at the end. Where are they taking us? Can we go back? How much will it cost?
In 1993, no one knew the answer. The car rode into the pink desert, and the passengers watched out the window in silence.
More than thirty years have passed. The car is still riding. The pink desert is still outside the window. The mirrored sky is still overhead. And the question remains the same: where are we going, and can we go back?
The 1991 shift in reality turned out to be irreversible. The first break, out of six or seven, became the start of a road with no way back. The speculative-fiction elements in the novel aren't an escape from reality. They're the only way to describe that reality.
Because if you spoke in realistic language, no one would believe it. They'd say it was exaggeration, artistic invention. But if you write about a pink desert and a mirrored sky, about a melting homeless man and beautiful people in tailcoats — then they'll believe it. Because the 1990s really were science fiction. Terrifying, absurd, impossible — but real.