“Baba Seva - Seva Efraimovna Gekhtman - was born in a small town in Ukr...” — Keith Gessen Quote

Baba Seva - Seva Efraimovna Gekhtman - was born in a small town in Ukraine in 1919. Her father was an accountant at a textile factory, and her mother was a nurse. Her parents moved to Moscow with her and her brothers when she was a child.

All literature has this moral strain, but in Russian literature, it's particularly sharp.

In 1939, Orwell wrote a long essay titled 'Inside the Whale,' about modernism, the nineteen-thirties, Henry Miller, and 'Tropic of Cancer.'

The imputation to Brodsky of Russian nationalist views is, of course, paradoxical and worth considering.

The sudden collapse of the monarchy that had ruled Russia for three hundred years led to chaos. Russia immediately became, as one participant put it, 'the freest country in the world.'

I'm very aware of my spending, but I'm not very aware of my income. There are certain times when I speak to my accountant, or something will pop up, and I'll be like 'oh' but it's not really a frontrunner in my head.

I didn't want to be an accountant; I found myself being a banker, which was a bit different. I went to university, and I was going to do a Ph.D. in the States, but I didn't get the funding for it, so I had two years where I had a bit of a wobble and didn't really know what I wanted to do, and I ended up working as a banker.

I was an accountant for six months, and for the last three, I didn't do much work.

I didn't do anything differently than what my father was doing. It's a really hard family to rebel in. I could have become an accountant. Or I could have become a Republican.