Lev Khalif is a Russian poet, prose writer, author of the famous quatrain “Turtle,” which became folklore in the 50s. “The Turtle” was in the lists, it was quoted in Edlis’s performances and was taken as an epigraph by Yuri Dombrovsky, but the censorship invariably removed it, especially if it was performed under the name of the author. Once “Turtle” was printed in a million copies on the cover of the radio magazine “Krugozor”. “The Turtle” appeared in V. Grossman’s novel “Life and Fate” as folklore. In 1977, Khalifa was literally forced into exile. "TsDL" and the novel "Break" were written in a foreign land.