Paintings play an important symbolic role throughout the stories. In some cases, such as in “The Leopard,” paintings are a tragic and ironic link to the past, and Markin’s redemption for the death of his brother. In “The Grozny Tourist Bureau,” paintings are a way of connecting Ruslan to his dead family. The author himself sets the stage for paintings serving a major role as a symbol in the Zakharov quote that frames the work.

While this motif appears most notably through the character of Nadya, who is blinded by an explosion prior to the events in “The Grozny Tourist Bureau,” and who then has reconstructive surgery due to the acquisition of a Zakharov painting, this motif also appears in “The Leopard,” as Markin spends his solitary confinement without his spectacles, in a hazy de facto blindness.

In the closing images of the story collection, the mixtape represents an escape into a parallel reality, one unaffected by the horrors and tribulations of the fallout of the Soviet Union. Elsewhere, the mixtape represents the complex love between two brothers. Throughout the many stories, pop culture also serves as a world that many of the characters can experience only vicariously, such as the collective narrators in “Granddaughters,” who accompany Galina’s career as an actress from a distance as a way to escape into a fantasy.