LGMW MAGAZINE

Once, in the most famous opera house in Paris, a terrible fire broke out. During the tragedy, the prima donna died, while her fiancé — a talented composer — survived but was left with a horribly disfigured face. After the accident, he disappeared from public life and was never seen in the theatre again. Soon, strange rumours began to spread. People said that the heartbroken musician had settled beneath the opera house and that, after his death, he became a ghost haunting the

Anastasia Drapkina is originally from Kherson, Ukraine. She is multilingual. She fell in love with literature and languages thanks to books in her Ukrainian great-grandmother's house: a volume of Tyutchev made such a strong impression that she started writing poetry herself. When she grew up, she majored in Russian studies at Kyiv University. Then, full-scale war came to Ukraine. Nastya talks about the abolition of culture and language, responsibility, and coming to terms wit

Every place smells its own way. Any good dog will tell you that. Everything has a scent unlike anything else in the world. The kitchen, for example, always smells like the buns Mommy bakes, and Mrs. D — the old lady everyone oddly calls “the neighbour” — smells of her garden and the ancient yarn of her lavender cardigan. It’s impossible to confuse a forest lane at the edge of the city with a park square, even though Daddy insists on calling them the same thing. (Sometimes I t