An area collapsing
into wise beards of giants,
Dostoevsky,Bunin,Tolstoy,Chekhov

Each, a decimation and integration
an oxymoronic existence,
mix life and death,
some unbearable winters,
some poverty
and tall glass of vodki,
you invent an utopia,
that is still alive in dusts
and pages.

a dream of winter, isn’t that easy:
Siberia is dying of touch of warmth
Petersburg is selling Vodki by it’s heartbeat.
Its still just old farms and innumerable counts.

Beautiful women still detested by beauty,
Brave men still abhorred by the truth,
Death still irritated by shallowness, we create,

I brisk past Moscow,
Kremlin is still the same,
my bones ache by the walk,
Never Invade Russia in winter?
One never remembers.

• Shashank Bhardwaj