After and Before

The collection of poems by Alexei Kiyanytsia resembles a photo album, in which photographs of the present "after" and the past "before" are gathered together: here are summer vacations in the city of childhood, here is the Christmas tree on the balcony, here is the first of September and first love, and here is already St. Petersburg, Sadovaya and Liteyny, travels, whiskey brought from "European narrowness" to "Russian wordless expanse"... The last frame captures the main rule of the art of nostalgia: "...never go back / to where once / and don't look for those / with whom once."