The Tsar of Love and Techno

The censor artist that makes an appearance across various stories, Markin is the quintessential tortured artist, miscast in the role of government yes-man. In his lack of impulse control—inexplicably leaving the hand of the Polish ballerina in the photograph and then bringing the picture, government property, home—he reveals a longing for experiences beyond his daily work. As he loses touch with reality, he must make sense of his greatest regret: betraying his own brother. Throughout the story, Markin unravels more and more, as he struggles to understand why he is in prison in the first place, and whose denunciation landed him there. As he works on his manufactured confession, he becomes detached from truth itself, most directly evidenced by the fact that the seminarian he believes he has been speaking to may never have existed. For someone already so close to despair, this is perhaps the harshest truth of all to come to terms with, even as he faces certain death after the farce of his trial.

The granddaughter of a Polish ballerina, Galina becomes a larger-than-life figure as she catapults to fame after winning the Miss Siberia contest. She remains an important figure throughout many of the stories, but mostly only to show the strength of her connection with Kolya.