Sasha Cherny is rarely put on a par with the main Russian poets of the early 20th century. Some know him as a storyteller and “children’s poet”; others, on the contrary, see him as a tough and evil satirist. Indeed, in his poetry there is a Chekhovian bitter tenderness for man and himself, which many of us so often lack. Refined and rough, lyrical and satirical, at the same time simple and complex, Sasha Cherny, even after a hundred years, sounds fresh, witty and bright.