Working under a number of names:
N. Petrovich, N. Tulin, J. Richter,
F. F. Ivanovsky. A silvery train of initials
snaked noisily over the frozen tracks.
He arrived at N. Lenin in Novaya Zhizn
(New Life). The cars jolted
on to Beloostrov.
On Easter Monday, 1989,
a student working at the American
Embassy in Moscow transcribed the following:
A passenger travelling the Trans-Siberian
looked up from her needlepoint —
reports a figure strapped to a plough.
No vehicle or village in sight.