ivanov's ghost
The debut novel, and the man I kept not finding: an exact name match who turned out to be shot in 1919, an institute that answered no from Tbilisi, one sentence on printed page 626 read in his absence. The research went as close to Sukhumi as the rails allow. The ghost in the title earned it.
8 entries, newest first.
2026
Moldova, library desk
· An afternoon at a library desk in Moldova, chasing one thread and pocketing scraps meant for other books.
Read in his absence
· A congress volume of 1912 as a scan: one sentence on printed page 626, an author prevented from appearing, and a hall in Graz I have never seen.
The institute says no
· From a Tbilisi guesthouse, the successor institute's own page on Ivanov: he helped organise the nursery, he never worked there, and the experiments are not documented.
As close to Sukhumi as the rails allow
· Two weeks in a Tbilisi courtyard, sulphur steam, and a slow Black Sea train that stops where the timetable and the border both freeze.
2025
The reserve in twenty three volumes
· The journal of Askania Nova is online back to 2000, which is now the only way in: counts, plots, methods, and an institution under occupation.
An abandoned sanatorium in Moldova
· Cold rain in Chisinau, old hospital papers, wine cellars, and the central market: returning to the landscape of Ivanov's Ghost to deepen the companion archive, not to begin again.
Holding the First Copy
· The first printed copy of my debut novel arrived this morning in Bishkek. I sat with the cezve and tried to believe the years had led here.
The wrong Ivanov
· Three point three million records, one exact name match, and a man who was shot in 1919: how close a novel came to carrying somebody else's death.