Sekisov A. Vaginov's Room / Anton Sekisov. — Moscow: Alpina Non-fiction: Bookmate, 2025. — 256 pages. ISBN 978-5-00223-060-0 "Vaginov's Room" combines a mystical thriller and black comedy, set in a Saint Petersburg communal apartment. The young philologist Senya decides to move into an apartment on the Griboedov Canal embankment, the very one where the writer Konstantin Vaginov lived, to write his biography. His neighbors turn out to be quite strange characters: a half-mad lonely poet, a girl who runs a blog about her raccoon, an Italian alcoholic, and a detached lover of ancient philosophy. Behind one of the room's doors, someone is forcibly holding a girl. Will she be able to escape? Anton Sekisov's new book ("Blood and Soil," "God of Anxiety," "Recreation Areas") belongs to the "Petersburg Text" genre. Its heroes inevitably feel the influence of the spirit of the place — a space where everything that happens is predetermined, thoroughly permeated with absurdity, and the boundary between reality and hallucination fades. The text of "Vaginov's Room" is philological and filled with numerous allusions and references to Vaginov's own novels. But even readers unfamiliar with his work will appreciate the masterfully twisted plot that keeps suspense until the very end, and the author's distinctive style full of irony and satire. UDC 821.161.1-311.1 BBK 84(2=411.2)6-444