Snezhnaya has a lot of references to real history and culture. Let's learn about them together! Read the first part here:
Lore References. Snezhnaya: Part I
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Names
- Saltykov was the first lover of Empress Catherine the Great.
- Bulgakov was a famous Russian writer. Voland, Margarita, and the Master are characters from his novel "The Master and Margarita."
- Yarovaya is a Russian politician with quite bad bills called the Yarovaya package. Funny that she looks very similar to our Vila.
- Buturlina was a Russian jazz singer and actress.
- Chulkaturin is the main character of The Diary of a Superfluous Man, telling about a man who couldn't find his place in the world and felt insignificant.
- Dr. Moreau is a mad scientist from the novel The Island of Doctor Moreau who creates human-like hybrid beings from animals.
- Koshchei the Immortal is a lord of the dead, an evil sorcerer, and a necromancer. No matter how hard people tried to kill him, he always returned. But his vitality was hidden. To kill Koshchei, people needed to find an island in the ocean. On this island stood an oak tree, and under this tree was a chest. In this chest was a hare, and inside the hare was a duck. Inside the duck was an egg, and inside the egg was a needle. If you break this needle, Koshchei will die.
- Rozhdestvensky may refer to a famous Soviet poet, Robert Rozhdestvensky.
- Antioch was a city in ancient Syria.
- Kandinsky was one of the pioneers in abstract art.
- Aivazovsky was a famous Romantic Russian painter. Most of his works are about the sea.
Aivazovsky's painting "North Sea Storm"
- Bely was a Soviet novelist.
- Vyazemsky was a Russian poet.
- Akhmatova was a famous Russian poetess.
- Tsvetaeva was a famous Russian poetess.
- Tatishchev was a Russian historian and ethnographer.
- Arapov was a Soviet composer.
- Talalikhin was a Soviet aviator during WWII.
- Chichikov is the main character in Gogol's novel Dead Souls. It's not a mystical novel, "soul" refers to a serf, and "dead soul" refers to people who were still accounted for in property registers.
- Malevich was a Ukrainian avant-garde artist.
Malevich's painting Black Square
- Zhara is a part of Zhar-Ptitsa (Firebird) - a bird from Slavic mythology. Catching this bird is almost impossible, and it may symbolize both blessing and doom for those who catch it.
- Basement Dweller refers to Dostoevsky's novel Notes from Underground.
- Pauper may refer to Dostoevsky's novel Poor Folk.
- Fool may refer to Dostoevsky's novel The *di**.
You can read about Alyosha and Odette's references here:
Snezhnayan Lore. Alyosha
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Snezhnayan Lore References. Odette
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Other
- "The Cherry Orchard Was Sold" refers to Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard."
- "For Whom It Tolls" is Hemingway's novel.
- You Shall Not Pass, obviously refers to the Lord of the Rings' famous phrase.
- Fae fishing with their tails in ice holes refers to the tale "The Fox and the Wolf." One day, a fox saw a man carrying fish on a sled. To steal the fish, the fox pretended to be dead. The man picked it up to make a collar and placed it in the sled. The fox ate all the fish and ran away. Along the way, she encountered a hungry wolf and told him she had caught fish by dipping her tail in an ice hole. The wolf tried to catch fish this way, but villagers spotted him and began beating him. The wolf tried to escape, but his tail froze. Eventually, he tore off his tail and fled.
- One of the puzzles with a girl's voice in the abandoned house may refer to "The Little Match Girl" - Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale about a girl who froze to death on New Year's Eve.
