Dmitry Bykov did not call his poetic feuilletons letters of happiness for nothing. There is a complete impression that he himself experiences unadulterated bliss when he rhymes emergency with GDP or puts the Madagascar names Rajuelina and Ravalomanan into a poetic line. And the reader is happy from the feeling of immediacy, almost impromptu, which the poet copes with playfully. The poet’s game is not safe - not because the “bloody regime” will shackle him for scoffing. But because the reader begins to expect something funny, something hilarious, from a satirist and humorist. Dmitry Bykov is a great and serious writer, who is still enough for everything: novels, poetry, essays, and newspaper columns. And, yes, for letters of happiness - again there were enough of them for a whole book. A very serious genre, by the way.