Read Yama: The Pit by Kuprin

his work in Kiev in 1890s, and it is in this city that the novel's action takes place. Speaking in 1909 to a local newspaper correspondent about prototypes, he commented: "Characters I've made cannot be seen as copying real people. I picked up a lot of small details from the real life, but that was by no means copying the reality, which is something I detest doing." He added that his observations were by no means restricted to Kiev. "The Pit is [about] Odessa, Petersburg and Kiev," Kuprin said.[3] The real life episode similar to that of singer Rovinskaya and her friends making a visit to a brothel happened in Saint Petersburg. According to the critic Alexander Izmaylov, the author was relating it to his friends as far back as 1905.[4] Zhenya's character (according to biographer O.Mstislavskaya) was partly inspired by Kuprin's encounter with his neighbour landlord's niece in Danilovskoye, his Nizny Novgorod region estate. In 1908 he asked his friend Fyodor Batyushkov for Z.Vorontsova's book Memoirs of a Café-chantant Singer (1908) which provided him numerous details, some of which he used while creating the Tamara character.[1] Platonov's monologues echo the discussions concerning prostitution that were going on in the Russian press in[masked]; similar views were expressed by the Saint Petersburg doctor P.E. Oboznenko.[1]