Things are on the move and by the time this issue is published, there will be another event that all of us are eagerly waiting for: the publication of the Almanac. We have the bitter experience in connection with the printing house and I hope this experience will be of use to us in the future.
The 28th issue is going to be the most capacious in the history of "The Idiot". I hope that the quality of the contents has not dropped in proportion. The authors of the main works published in the 28th issue — V. Senkov, I. Vysotsky and V. Martov — are very well known to our readers, and they are the best, I suppose, that we could find in Vitebsk so far.
The short story "The Agony", written by V. Senkov some years ago, was the only one that we could not publish at that time for some reason. Now we take the opportunity to show you the last brick (and the least one, I suspect), to see the wall that Senkov as a short story writer has built, utterly, without the hole.
Igor Vysotsky feels fine in the poetry, but not so perfectly in prose. To get some practice before writing his main prosaic work, we have informed you already, I.Vysotsky has written the novel "Faura's Heart" which we present to you in this issue.
I am glad to introduce the last work of Vladimir Martov, named "The Estrangement" by which he continues to study life and himself, and successfully.
There are two new names in the issue: Nina Obuschova and Alla Shurda. Obuschova's verses are ordinary enough and only the aspiration to collect new names and the weak hope to see this young girl grow somehow in the future made us publish them.
On the contrary, the short story of Alla Shurda will impress you deeply (although I suppose this success is accidental and you should give the editor his due for he unearthed this original story from under the others and made some changes in it).
There is one new name more on our pages not as an author but as a chief of a new section of "Idiot", Alexander Vyrvich. He is to lead "Computer review". We hope that this debut will have a continuation.
The issue begins with the verses of Sergey Kolbanov, one of our young but promising authors.
So, my dear reader, if you are ready, start with him.
March 7, 1994
Slava Novikov