He considered himself “the second poet of the 20th century” (after Pasternak; regardless of the fact that the century was not yet over) - few people would agree with this now. He considered the best praise for himself to be the words of Samuil Galkin, who called his poems “mysterious” - you can’t argue with Zabolotsky on this. In poetry, he is not like anyone, including himself (the late one is not like the early one). In life, he was a denial of the stereotype of a poet. Both there and here there is a riddle and a mystery, the understanding of which can only be approached...