One of the most common thematic threads throughout this collection of stories is the investigation of freedom vs. oppression, as it plays out in the aftermath of the Soviet Union and its historical aftershocks. While the geopolitical context may change slightly from story to story—either because the stories are set in different time periods or because the locations shift throughout the collection—each character must come to terms with the consequences of Soviet oppression, either directly, as in the case of Markin in “The Leopard,” Ruslan in “The Grozny Tourist Bureau,” or as Vladimir in “A Temporary Exhibition.”

The most pronounced example of freedom appears in “The End,” when Kolya floats to the afterlife in a space capsule. The implication here is that freedom is only truly possible outside of Russia, and perhaps outside of life, where time and space are mere concepts, and where the ugliness of history is only a vague memory. By contrast, the far-reaching consequences of Roman Markin’s “erasing” of history keep showing up in various stories, reminding the characters that they can never really escape the past, especially a past so wrought with the pain and suffocation of Communist Russia.