The first collections of poems by Vladimir Nabokov (V. Sirin) were rated very low by critics. The main blow fell on the collection “The Bunch”. Reviewers - Alexander Bakhrakh, Konstantin Mochulsky - vied with each other to accuse the young poet of creative immaturity and imitation (primarily A. Fet and A. Blok), highlighting as the main drawback of his lyrics “a purely external approach to the world, poverty of internal symbolism, lack of genuine creative fire" (Gleb Struve). “Sirin’s poems have a long past and no future” (Konstantin Mochulsky) - such was the cruel verdict of critics. Only one reviewer (Vladimir Amfiteatrov-Kadashev, Sirin’s comrade in the literary association “Brotherhood of the Round Table”) gave an unconditionally positive review of the already pretty well-tweaked and beaten "Grozd".N. Melnikov. “Classic without retouching.”