The Whisperers

* It is possible that Simonov was thinking here of Pyotr Palchinsky (1875–1929), the mining engineer whom Kerensky placed in command of the Winter Palace in October 1917. Imprisoned by the Bolsheviks, Palchinsky was released and subsequently allowed to resume his work at the Russian Technical Institute during the 1920s. He was rearrested in 1928 and executed the next year. There were many camp legends about famous prisoners like Palchinsky, and it seems that Simonov was taken in by one of them.