What is this zine?
This conceptualist book presents a single short text, blending prose and poetry. Despite containing only one page of text, the book spans 96 pages in total.

This book was composed on a typewriter once owned by a man who was executed, yet the typewriter had never been used until now.
This book is a single love letter addressed to a woman whom this man had neither met nor loved.

The typewriter itself has a curious flaw: the ‘o’ key punctures the paper, even when folded multiple times. It’s not about the quality of paper or how hard you press the key; it’s something far deeper, a sort of hyper-reflection. The malfunction is a metaphor of a gunshot hole or wound, as well as a means for the author to extend the text across the book’s pages. Although the book is actually blank, the text manifests itself in these perforated “o’s” – 6,700 of them to be precise.

Finally, the epigraph to this book features a note written by Joseph Stalin on the last page of the manuscript of Maxim Gorky’s fairy tale poem The Girl and The Death. It says: “Love defeats death”. It is believed that the dictator’s words were likely intended as mockery, they ironically hold a deeper truth and power that cannot be dismissed.

In 2022, I was at the editorial office of the Voprosy Literatury journal, preparing an exhibition dedicated to Yury Dombrovsky, the author of The Keeper of Antiquities and The Faculty of Useless Knowledge. Written by a survivor of Stalin’s regime, this powerful dilogy explores life under the constant shadow of fear during the 1930s.

Dalila Portnova, the writer’s niece, donated an artifact of that period – an American typewriter – and told me its history.
The typewriter’s original owner, a friend of the Dombrovskys, had purchased it just days before his arrest and subsequent execution. Following his tragic fate, the typewriter was passed to the Dombrovsky family, likely with the intent of being used by Yury during his imprisonment in Kolyma. However, it remained unused, stored in the attic of their summer home, where it lay undisturbed and perfectly preserved for over eighty years.
One day, I sat down at the storied typewriter and began composing a love letter. Hoping to unlock the words that would express my feelings, I found myself mechanically typing the beloved’s name, much like Jack Torrance obsessive repetition in The Shining. Yet before the page could be completed, I paused.
A realization struck me: these weren’t merely the opening lines of a love letter; they were the first words to ever be typed on this typewriter.

The page took on a profound significance, transforming both my perspective and the world around. It is as if the owner’s tragic life has been redeemed with a life triumph after all. I typed a single sentence acknowledging that these were the first words. My love letter was complete. The history of the typewriter and its owner, the epigraph, and all other elements were added later during the process of revision.

First
We don’t have time. No time at all for long reading.

Second
With that, art must serve as a warning shot.
Someone, please! Fire into the air to stop it all, to stop them, us, everyone!

Third
You can write and even doodle in this book, so it will be put to good use in any case.
However, it is still a book, not a notebook. You will notice it when you read it and study it closer, which should take no more than five minutes.

If you don’t, it’s all right, too. Just rip out the first page with the text and start scribbling on the blank pages. You will see that they are not really blank. The book will resist – textless, yet filled with holes.
How can the words be there, even when they are not?
You’ll see.

Behind it, I hope, you will sense the story unfolding: gunshot holes, nails driven in, a ticket punched on a past journey to a country that no longer exists, a music roll for a mechanical piano, stars, and the elementary particles physicists are after...

Poets will see the essential meaning, the biggest and truest word compressed into a single letter and then gone, leaving only a hole.

... Love defeats death.

Joseph Stalin

My beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna,
my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna,
my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna,
my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna,
my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna,
my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna,
my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna,
my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna,
my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna,
my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna,
my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna,
my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna,
my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna, my beloved Alina Sergeevna,
my beloved Alina Sergeevna,

may these be the first words ever typed on the typewriter of an executed man who never had the chance to use it himself.¹

¹ Royal typewriter, made in New York, serial number HM14–921942041. The tabulation is broken, and several keys stick: “й”, “ш”, “щ”, “т”, “ю”, “ц”, “6/:”, “7/.”, “8/№”; key “o” punches a hole like a bullet (even if pressed very gently). This typewriter has never been used until now, abandoned in the attic of a summer house for many years. It belonged to Mikhail Abugov (1901–1941), lecturer of Rostokino District Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and a member of the same party. Mikhail Abugov purchased the typewriter a few days before his arrest on March 13, 1941. Shortly thereafter, he was sentenced to death as a member of a counter-revolutionary terrorist organization. He was executed on July 8, 1941 at the Kommunarka shooting range and posthumously exonerated on December 8, 1956. Who was the woman he loved, did he have a family, a wife, children? We will never know. But what matters more now is my beloved Alina Sergeevna…

1
In fact, the idea for this zine came after I discovered how challenging it was to publish a blank, punctured book in the era of technology.

Publishers were hesitant, unwilling to risk their resources without guarantees of a perfectly aligned result, and no one and nothing could guarantee producing perfectly aligned holes. We experimented with machine perforation using a cliché of a very intricate design, but the holes would shift and distort in the center of the page. The punctured “o’s” were too numerous and little. Eventually, one printing company accepted my project, only for their designer to inform me that the paper was being torn by the puncher. Regrettably, they halted production until a solution could be found.

While the printers were busting their brains and ruining paper, I decided to take matters into my own hands and create the book myself.

The first task was sourcing vintage A4 paper and setting the proper layout. Then, I needed to carefully position the text, a process complicated by ongoing edits and additions. Aligning the perforations created by the “o” key across all pages presented yet another challenge. I experimented with feeding three or four pages into the old typewriter at once, adapting to its quirks - the sticking keys and occasionally jamming carriage, which was challenging to say the least.
The inexplicable flaw of the “o” key resembled a sort of hyper-reflection in humans. I could punch through two sheets of paper folded in half or eight pages of the book at a time. This would take me about an hour, and crafting a single cover required an hour and a half. The entire project spanned two months. The ink ribbon, a victim of the “o” key’s destructive nature, eventually had to be removed due to persistent jamming.
Naturally, the typewriter accumulated debris and jammed.
White chips, black dust, and bits of ribbon clogged the levers.
I cleaned and lubricated it, restoring its smooth function.
Unexpectedly, other keys acquired the same defect, leading to misplaced perforations and ruined pages. It took time to get used to it, and the process began to look like a virtuoso piano playing (or typewriter playing).

The typewriter demanded absolute accuracy. A single mistake meant starting from scratch. While I could use a razor blade to erase errors on the initial pages – an old, trusted technique – a hole punched by the “o” key was irreversible.
Spoiled by the convenience of computers and printers, we tend to believe that we can endlessly rewrite all we want. But a typewriter offers no such luxury. There are no second chances with it. It is as it is. No page is like another, just like us, humans.

Then, I moved on to punching the holes.

All I did was punching away. It was a weird, yet very effective use of the typewriter. But after hours and days of work my sense of reality began to blur. The deceptive blankness of each page took hold of my mind, overwhelming me. My eyes grew sore, and headaches set in. Yet, I was encouraged to press on. It is peculiar how other people can support you even in the dumbest of activities, though some may later regret it:
The typewriter was loud... A cover, 96 pages, 134 holes on each page, 6,700 holes in total.

As I neared the end, the typewriter began jamming again. I feared it might not survive the strain of producing a perforated book. The rubber roller had also suffered, developing cracks and dents that affected the neatness of the perforations, which likely explains the slight misalignment of some holes.

2
Nowadays, only a lunatic would attempt typing an entire novel on a typewriter. A poem or a love letter, however, is a doable task – whether for aesthetic pleasure, amusement, to make an impression, or simply to indulge in nostalgia.

The same applies to holes: anyone can make a punctured book for the same reasons – an appreciation of beauty, to make an artistic statement, or to explore the interplay of aesthetic flaws and visual effects. Holes offer unique expressiveness. For example, you can hold the open book against a light source, projecting an intricate interplay of shadows – perfect for social media photos.

Or you can publish a blank book; for example, a satirical collection of modern political sayings or a treatise on sexual issues – leaving only the author’s name and title on the cover. Actually, it is not new, but can serve as a pointed joke or a critique, where “nothing” becomes the answer to everything.
You could still write a traditional poem, employing all the usual devices – rhythm, rhyme, line breaks – or mimic the futurists.

Anything is possible, all techniques are available.
But technique alone is not enough. There must be a story that unfolds through the convergence of words, holes, and blankness.
I didn’t write the book on purpose. Initially, it was a love letter, and the rest became clear later on. I experienced profound joy once I discovered that the words work! They have the power to restore value – even to an object once associated with death. What was once a reminder of tragedy now celebrates life and love.

Words must transcend mere aesthetics. The holes must represent more than just empty spaces. The blankness must not be void.
This is no joke or whim.
I am serious.

Despite its blankness, the book is not nothing, it’s everything.

Finally, I realized that the missing letter holds the utmost significance: there is a living word, seemingly absent on paper. There’s no text, just holes – a symbol, a counterform, suggesting the presence of a word that exists within.
I also realized that I can’t translate the book into other languages.

The punctured holes will be different: “дорогая” in Russian and “beloved” in English – yield fewer holes, as you can see. Imagine trying to translate this into Chinese characters. I haven’t decided how I feel about it.
Is it good or bad?

I’m not sure. Perhaps translators will find a solution. For my part, I have never shared the pride people take in the untranslatable nature of Alexander Pushkin’s works. On the contrary, I see it as a limitation.

3
She doesn’t like to read.
I read aloud to her.
She still didn’t like it.
Perhaps she’ll appreciate a blank, punctured book?