'Which reminds me painfully of the
golubyanki (petits bleus) Aqua used to send me,' remarked
Demon with a sigh (1.29)
Vivian Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): golubyanka: Russ., small blue butterfly; petit
blue: Parisian* slang for pneumatic post (express message on blue
paper).
There is Lubyanka (a square in Moscow where the
headquarters of the Soviet secret police were situated) in golubyanka.
Solovki and Lubyanka are paired in Speak, Memory (Chapter Thirteen, 5):
The thunderclap of purges that had affected 'old
Bolsheviks,' the heroes of his [Nesbit's] youth, had
given him a salutory shock, something that in Lenin's day all the groans coming
from the Solovki force labor camp or the Lubyanka dungeon had not been able to
do.
In Drugie berega (Chapter Eight, 5) Solovki are
also mentioned in connection with 'Volgin' (VN's tutor who married one of
his pupil's older relations and - during his subsequent career in
Lenin's administration - bundled his wife off to the Solovki labor camp):
При Советах этот бархатный Волгин был комиссаром - и вскоре
устроился так, чтобы сбыть жену в Соловки. In
Speak, Memory VN adds: The more I think of
that man [Volgin], the more I believe that he was
completely insane.
Aqua is Demon's insane wife who spent most of her time in
various sanatoriums. Her poor little letters from the homes
of madness to her husband were sometimes signed: Madame Shchemyashchikh-Zvukov
(Heart rending-Sounds). (1.3)
*On Antiterra (Earth's twin planet on which Ada is
set) Paris is also known as Lute. Lyutyi means in Russian
"ferocious, fierce, cruel."
Alexey Sklyarenko