Literature / Generation P

this game has no name

I bow before the living god

Generation P, published in 1999, is the most significant novel of the famous Russian writer Victor Pelevin. It gained a considerable popularity and had a lasting influence on the Russian literature.

Its protagonist, Babylen (Vavilen in original text) Tatarsky, a literature student, becomes an advertising copywriter, makes a quick career in this trade and later assumes the function a of a (symbolic) husband of a Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar becoming the avatar of Marduk, the living god of advertisment in his own right. It turns out that the humanity in this universe is ruled by Illuminati from media corporations through news and advertisements.

The film of the book lingered in the development hell for years until it was finished in 2011. All roles were performed by the memetic Russian actors. Babylen Tatarsky was played by Vladimir Epifantsev of the notorious The Green Elephant fame. Sergei Shnurov, the vocalist of Leningrad, played Guireev. Vladimir Menshov played Farsuk Seiful-Farseykin.

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Tropes

• The Ace: Semyon Valin, the head designer of the organisation, ruled by Azadovsky. Lampshaded after his death.
• Addled Addict: Azadovsky, Tatarsky's predecessor as the husband of the goddess Ishtar is impled to be this, that's why he loses his position and his life. Unlimited cocain consumption took toll on his mind.
• Advertising Disguised as News: Seems to be always the case in the book. News are a mere pretext for the product placement. E.g., once a tough general-cum-politician while interviewed for TV holds a pack of cigarettes of a certain brand. Of course the principal aim of the video is to promote that particular brand, not to inform the public about the opinions of the said general. So if a certain programmer is bribed by the competitors and digitally changes the brand of the cigarettes, held by the general, he can be killed for that machination.
• Alliterative Name: Farsuk Seiful-Farseykin.
• All Myths Are True: In this universe both the Christian God and Mesopotamian deities are implied to exist.
• Ancient Conspiracy: Its members rule the world since ancient ages. They are successors of the Chaldean guild in Babylon and now they act though the media corporation (Interbank Committee) and still worship ancient Mesopotamian gods. Thanks to their help the Illuminati nowadays control the humanity.
  • It is not described, how they ruled the world and Russia in particular before the emergence of television.
• Arc Words: 'This game has no name. It will never be the same.' (They are in English also in the original book).
  • Tatarsky at first sees the inscription "This game has no name" on the gates of the ziggurat (or an abandoned Soviet rardar station) when he reaches it while first time on drugs.
    • Very soon after that he heards The Voice in his mind which pronounces arc words in full (This game has no name. It will never be the same). Later Babylen learns that this voice belongs to the Sirruf.
  • Later when Tatarsky comes to speak to Khanin, he sees in his office of poster of Parliament cigarettes with the slogan "It will never be the same."
  • Once Tatarsky goes to a shop to buy trainers. When the shoes he selectes turn out to be of the "No name" make, he considers it a big coincidence which should mean something. Of course he purchases the pair on the spot.
  • Mentioned by the Sirruf as he appears before Tatarsky after the hero has eaten a big dose of acid.
    'Sirruf has arrived,' the voice replied.
    (Tatarsky:)'What's that, a name?'
    "This game has no name,' the voice replied. 'It's more of an official position.
  • In the end Farsuk tells hims that the goddess, generally known as Ishtar, is actually a No Name deity because she changes too many names and in the process lost her own.
• Armor Is Useless: Invoked by the frightened Khaninm when the armoured car of his protector Wee Vova is destroyed by the Shmel flamethrower killing Wee Vova himself.
  But those bastards dug a trench on the opposite hill during the night, and as soon as he turned up they blasted him with a pair of "shmel" flame-throwers. They're fearsome fucking things: produce a volumetric explosion with a temperature of two thousand degrees. Wee's car was armour-plated, but armour's only good against normal people, not these abominations.
• As the Good Book Says...:
  • Tatarsky is keen on quotes from the Book of Ecclesiastes.
  • In the end he also cites Psalm 14:5 in a commercial for Coca-Cola and against PepsiCo.
    "There they are in great dread,
    For God is with the righteous generation."
• Author Appeal: Pelevin is generally interested in Buddhism, conspiracy theories and drugs. In this particular book he is also interested in advertising and describes the plots of various commercials on its pages.
• Author Filibuster: It is disguised as the Character Filibuster which is pronounced by the ghost of Che Guevara. This spectre delivers several lengthy monologues about the evils of consumerism in the chapter 7.
  • A famous part of the Author Filibuster is the concept of oranus or moutharse (os, oris is 'mouth' in Latin). Oranus is the true structure of the modern society. Every modern man keen on consumption is the cell in the huge oranus orgamism in which money serves as blood and television is the nervous system.
  • Every man in Oranus is motivated by three kinds of wow-impulses (from interjection "Wow", widely used in advertising and scoffed in the novel) which prevent him from thinking about anything but enrichment and consumption:
    • Oral wow-impulse, which compels him to earn (swallow) more money. to avoid the suffering of being unable to afford the things which millionaires can afford.
    • Anal wow-impulse which compels him to spend (excrete) that money to approach the image of those millionaires.
    • Displacing wow-impulse which suppresses and displaces any other thoughts and wishes but for those resulting from two previous wow-impulses. It does not let one be distracted from earning and spending.
• Banana Republic: Post-Soviet Russia according to Pelevin became exactly this in The '90s. Aggravated by the fact that the country cannot even grow any bananas and has to import them... from Finland.
• Bazaar of the Bizarre: The shop called Path to Yourself trading in various religion-related and esoteric items is a version of this. There you can acquire both a Che Guevara T-shirt and a planchette to summon the spirit of the said Che Guevara.
• Badass Longcoat: Pugin inspired great (and irrational) respect to Tatarsky at their first meeting because he was wearing a black longcoat at the table while drinking the tea.
• Bad Guy Bar: The terrible pub once visited by Azadosky with a company of subordinates (including Tatarsky and Sasha Blo).
  The pub, located in the basement of a brick building with peeling paint not far from the railway platform, really was quite exceptionally dirty and foul-smelling. The people squeezed in at the tables with their quarter-litres of vodka matched the den perfectly.
• Big Guy: Wee Vova. That does not help him when his car is shot at from the flamethrower.
• Bland-Name Product: Gloriously subverted. Pelevin mentions only the real names of many many brands.
• Blatant Lies: Tatarsky is sort of kidnapped by Hussein, the Chechen, who employed him in the past and whom he left without notice. Hussein asks the hero where he works now. Tatsrky answers that he is involved in the flower business with Azerbaijanis, called Rafik and Eldar. Of course soon Khanin calls him, Hussein takes his cell phone and the truth is more or less revealed. Anyway Wee Vova arrives to the scene and rescues him.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: A quite literary example of this. A TV anchor (who is none else than Azadovsky in make-up) tells that the Russian parliament has approved the minimal basket of goods for the a citizen. It includes "20 kilos of pasta, a centner of potatoes, 6 kilos of pork, a padded coat, a pair of shoes, an ushanka and a Sony Black Trinitron television."
• Briefcase Full of Money: Mentioned in one of the tirades by Che Guevara:
  A black bag stuffed with hundred-dollar bills has already become the supremely important cultural symbol and a central element of the majority of films and books, for which the trajectory of its path through life provides the main spring of the plot. In more precise terms, it is the presence in the work of art of this black bag that stimulates the audience's emotional interest in what is taking place on the screen or in the text.
• Butt-Monkey: Mikhail Nepoiman, the manager of Tampako/Tampoko.
  • Hussein kidnaps him and keeps him on the floor, chained to a bench, a TV opposite him repeatedly shows a footage of two Chechens cutting the throat of a Russian soldier (to intimidate the prisoner into paying his "debt", existing or not, to Chechen mafia).
  • When Wee Vova arrives to the scene to take Tatarsky from Hussein, he notices the chained man, jumps up to him and hits him in the face. Turns out, the businessman also owes money to Wee Vova's organisation. The Russian and Chechen gangsters contest the man and it nearly comes to the bloodshed. In the end Hussein says he drops his claim on Tatarsky as he is now under Wee Vova but the businessman is his. Two men agree to meet later.
  • The businessman manages to sneak his visit card to Tatarsky. Later, when Babylen is alone, he sees that it belongs to Mikhail Nepoiman, the manager of Tampoko (see You Are the Translated Foreign Word). Thus Tatarsky learns that Tampako has changed their name on his advice, never paying him. He does not help Nepoiman and it remains unknown, What Happened to the Mouse?.
• Capitalism Is Bad: Pelevin includes lengthy author filibusters disguised as character filibusters (courtesy of Che Guevara) to describe and decry the nefarious effects of the capitalism and consumerism in particular on the modern society and humans who live in it.
• Characters Dropping Like Flies: Indeed. From less than a dozen of significant characters more than a half is killed. Among them the anonymous customer who buys the very first scrpit by Tatarsky, Pugin (Tatarsky's first boss, if one does not count Morkovin who brought Babylen into business but never officially employed him), Wee Vova (a one-scene-wonder gangster), Khanin (Tatarsky's second boss), Semyon Velin (the best designer in the Interbank Committee), Azadovsky (Tatarsky's third boss), Farsuk Seiful-Farseykin (the man more influential than Azadovsky, most probably killed on the order of Tatarsky).
  • This is somewhat of the Truth in Television as in The '90s the life of businessmen in Russia was quite risky and their mortality rate quite high.
• The Chosen One: That's who Babylen Tatarsky is. He is destined to become a ritual husband of the goddess Ishtar and thus the patron of all advertisement.
• Collector of the Strange: Azadovsky buys up priceless works by old Spanish painters (Diego Velazques, Francisco de Goya et al.) as well as by German and French artists. However no pictures or statues can be seen in his personal gallery. Instead numerous receipts which confirm the purchases are hanging on its walls, while the works themselves are kept in some storehouse. That's the new trend for art collections (called monetarist minimalism) and Azadovsky honestly does not see any difference from the ordinary way because a picture always looks the same and once you examined it in detail there is nothing new to it. In any case one can always check the catalogue to see how a certain item looks.
• Continuity Nod: In the 2006 novel Empire V, its main character who is The Chosen One, somewhat, though not quite, similar to Tatarsky, once learns that Babylen has fallen from grace with Ishtar because he did not do good as her husband. Tatarsky still retains his position but his days are numbered. Downplayed as in Empire V the world is ruled by the conspiracy of vampires, while in Generation P no vampires whatsoever are present. Hence that mention appears gratuituous.
  • Thus in the new version of Empire V, pusblished in 2013, Tatarsky's mention is excluded.
• Cool Car: Small blue BMW driven by Morkovin.
• The Cynic: Tatarsky believed that after a year's work as a seller at the stall he had developped the highest degree of cynicism. see also Excellent Judge of Character.
• Cynicism Catalyst: The collapse of the socialist system in Russia and the emergence of the free market economy is this for the whole of land and definitely for Tatarsky. Also of importance is his year-long work as a seller at the stall owned by Chechens.
• Dada Ad: In this novel, oversaturated with descriptions of adverts, at least one of them is that. It is a commercial for a Panasword TV set where the oldest emplyee of Panasonic (oddly enough with a katana on his belt) is presenting the new product. At one point he snatches the sword, goes berserk and wreaks havoc in the room in honor of the mikado.
• David Versus Goliath: That's how the encounter of Wee Vova and Hussein can be described. Wee Vova is a big guy while Hussein is small and lean. However Hussein manages to hold his ground in his clash with Wee Vova using a hand grenade.
• Dead Man's Switch: Semyon Velin, who abused his post as a head designer in the Interbank Committee to make some cash, replacing brands in the political reports, devised the one. It was a dormant virus which, if not deactivated at the end of the month (by living Semyon Velin) would unleash a large-scale econimic crisis. When Azadovsky discovers the frauds of Velin, he immediately orderes him to be executed. Then a severe crisis, (the one of the August, 1998), strikes Russia.
• Dead Person Conversation: In one scene Tatasky manages to get in touch with none else than Che Guevara. The deceased Argentinian revolutionary makes some scathing comments about the nature of capitalism and consumerism.
• A Degree in Useless: Zigzagged. It is at first implied that a diploma of the Literary Instutute, earned by Tatarsky, is worthless. In the beginning he is employed as a seller in a stall. However later his knowledge acquired in the institute helps him successfully work as a copywriter.
• Disgusting Public Toilet: A toilet in the pub, visited by Azadovsky, accompanied by his retinue, including Tatarsky. However a certain detail in this toilet gave Babylen the idea for a cool slogan for the funeral home of Sasha Blo's brothers.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Subverted in the case of Semyon Velin, the most talented designer in the whole corporation of Azadovsky. Velin digitally replaces the pack of Camel cigarettes in the hand of the (programmed) general Lebed by Gitanes. Azadovsky is furious and orders to immediately execute him. However in this novel advertising might be the only Serious Business in existence and Azadovsky has a two-year contract with J. R. Reynolds Tobacco, accoring to which Lebed should be only shown on TV holding Camel. As this contract is infringed, J.R. Reynolds Tobacco now can demand the reduction of frequencies by 100 Megaherz (see Puppet State), thus lowering the processing capacity of the megacomputer. Therefore a fraud of Semyon Velin is very costly for the whole orgaisation.
• Divorce Requires Death: For the symbolic husband of the Great Goddess aka Ishtar. Once she sees Marduk in another man, a previous spouse is disposed of. In fact the husband still can persist until old age and the honorable retirement but for that he should always remain cool.
• Double-Meaning Title: Suitably this novel is originally named "Generaion П". The cyrillic letter П (similar to P) can be the short for several things. This the name might mean "Generation Pizdets" (Phukkup), "Generation Pepsi" as well as "Generation Pelevin".
  • Also this title is speculated to be a reference/parody of Generation X, 1991 debut novel by Douglas Coupland.
• Drugs Are Bad: Invoked by the Sirruf who arrives to Tatarsky, when he consumes a strong LSD stamp, as a hallucination or indeed as a monster sent to torture the hero for eating the overdose of a drug, not intended for the consumption by humans (definitely not by one human).
  'Man has a world in which he lives' the Sirruf said didactically. 'Man is man because he can see nothing except that world. But when you take an overdose of LSD or dine on panther fly-agarics, you're stepping way out of line - and you're taking a grave risk. If you only realised how many invisible eyes are watching you at that moment you would never do it; and if you were to see even just a few of those who are watching you, you'd die of fright. By this act you declare that being human is not enough for you and you want to become someone else. But in the first place, in order to cease being human, you have to die. Do you want to die?
• Early-Bird Cameo: Azadovsky is actually mentioned much earlier than he appears in person. Lena, an episodic character, relates Tatarsky about how he arrived to Moscow from Dnepropetrovsk and wooed her sister so that she registered him in her Moscow apartment. Later still Azadovsky invited from province his own sister with children and registered them in the same flat. After that Azadovsky performed a real estate swap (as according to the Soviet law the official registration in a flat meant the right for its share) so that he remained with his own apartment in the capital while Lena's sister found herself in a small room on the outskirts of Moscow. Lena actually admires Azadovsky and is sure that he will go far. She is especially delighted that he sent his sister with children back to the province immediately after the end of the operation.
• Embarrassing First Name: Appears to be a prerequisite for the candidates to the post of the goddess Ishtar's husband.
  • Vladimir Tatarsky was named Vavilen in the Russian original (translated as Babylen). It was an acronym made by his father, formed from the names of the Soviet writer Vasily Aksenov and the politician Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. By chance it sounded nearly identical to the name of the Mesopotamian metropolis Vavilon (Russian for Babylon). When Tatarsky applied for his first civil passport, he was still a minor and received it as Babylen. However as soon as he turned 18, reaching majority, he lost his first passport, and he changed his name in the newly-received document to the regular Vladimir. But the Illuminati learnt of his actual given name. According to Khanin, it happened because Tatarsky himself shared this information with Pugin while drunk.
    • This strange naming is due to the fact that Tatarsky's father belonged to a significant generation of ''shestidesyatniki'' or The sixtiers. They abhored Stalinism and wished to return to the early Soviet ideals ("of the democratic socialism"), those of Lenin (who ruled only in 1917-1922 until he became incapacitated), considering Stalinism a mere deviation. Aksenov (1932-2009) was a writer, very fashionable in the sixties among the said sixtiers. In The '70s all hopes were dropped.
  • Leonid Azadovsky confesses near the ending of the book that he was actually called Legion by his jerkass father. He disliked it until he learnt that he had been mentioned in the Bible (which actually made him a Louis Cypher). Still he also changed this name for the regular one, Leonid.
• The End of the World as We Know It: That's what will happen if the ever-sleeping god Pizdets awakes in the Russian tundra. Thus he should be kept in hibernation.
• Epigraph: From the song Democracy by Leonard Cohen.
  I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
  I love the country but I can't stand the scene
  And I'm neither left or right
  I'm just staying home tonight
  Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
• Erudite Stoner: Played straight for Guireev who is a drug user himself and also provides Tatarsky with fly-agarics. Besides, he philosophises about the existence.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Tatarsky has quite a few of these when he designs advertising slogans or posters. Such instance happens when he thinks of adverts for Parliament cigarette brand, Tampoko, a soft drinks producer-turned investment fund, and Debirsyan funeral home.
• Evil Redhead: Azadovsky is the one.
• Evil Takes a Nap: A canine deity from the Mesopotamian mythology called Pizdets/Phukkup (obviously invented by Pelevin) is sleeping in the distant Northern land (thus somewhere in Russia). It should be kept hibernating or else Armageddon will happen. According to Farsuk, it is the main mission of the Chaldean guild.
  • Farsuk also mentions that the deity has nearly awoken several times during the XX century (or at least its sleep became lighter), and one of such instances was/is in The '90s.
• Excellent Judge of Character: Tatarsky believes that after a year's work as a seller at the stall he had acquired the ability to understand every person at first sight (and to figure out if he can shortchange him or her and by how much). See also The Cynic. Of course in the cynical world of this novel you will never be disappointed thinking the worst about all people.
• Executive Excess: Azadovsky relished in this. In his office he consumes cocaine straight off his carpet. He wears extremely tasteless clothes. Also he can kill his subordinate if the latter defrauds him.
• Fiction 500: Alledgedly Azadovsky, the head of the Interbank Committee, a media corporation which seems to run the things in Russia, is insanely rich. He buys up the large collections of paintings by the most acclaimed Spanish, German and French painters. However, Tatarsky never sees the paintings themselves because Azadovsly instead of them ordered to exhibit in his gallery the receits which certify the acquisitions of his art works. Anyway, as a living god of advertising Azadovsky should be quite wealthy.
• Foil: In this novel chockful of brands two of them are foils: Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola. They are contrasted several times, though this topic is somewhat underdevelopped.
  • In his idyllic Soviet childhood Tatarsly drank only Pepsi because this corporation, unlike the Coca-cola company managed to break into the Soviet market, making a deal with the Soviet government who could arbitrarily give a pass into the Russia market to certain firms, excluding the others. Pelevin points out that Soviet children could not have a free choice between Pepsi-cola and Coca-Cola, like Soviet adults were not allowed to choose their leaders. Still pepsi tasted great in Tatarsky's childhood. "Generation Pepsi" has its source partly in this.
  • Once Pepsi-Cola is considered an inferior ingredient for the hair of the dog that bit you in comparison to Coca Cola:
    ...(in the hangover) any attempt to consume alcohol will instantly result in vomiting. What does the cunning man do? He deceives the machine's receptors. From a practical point of view it goes like this: you fill your mouth with lemonade. Then you pour a glass of vodka and raise it to your mouth. Then you swallow the lemonade, and while the receptors are reporting to the supreme control centre that you're drinking lemonade, you quickly swallow the vodka. Your body simply doesn't have time to react, because its mind's fairly sluggish. But there is one subtle point involved. If you swallow Coca-Cola before the vodka instead of lemonade, there's a fifty per cent chance you'll puke anyway; and if you swallow Pepsi-Cola, you're absolutely certain to puke.
  • In another episode Tatarsky is riding in a small very Cool Car of Morkovin and drinking bear. The car stops at the trafic lights and a huge jeep stops on its right. It is driven by a typical goon (low forehead, all hairy) who drinks pepsi from a plastic bottle. Suddenly Tatarsky realises that he is cooler than that macho - because his is in Morkovin's car which is definitely superior. They look at each other for some time and when the goon begins to feel angry, traffic light turns green and the cars start off.
  • In the end, when Tatarsky becomes the head of the Interbank Committee his first order is to ban Pepsi from the local canteen and sell there only Coca-Cola.
  • Also in the final chapter Tatarsky as a god of advertising, among other commercials, stars in an advert for Coca-Cola. Its plot depicts a universal congress of the religious fundamentalists from all main confessions in Moscow. Tatarsly plays an evangelical from Albuquerque, New-Mexico. He tramples an empty can of Pepsi and shouts toward the Kremlin wall the quote from Psalms 14:5.
    "There they are in great dread,
    For God is with the righteous generation."
• Foreign Language Title: Mostly. Its original title is Generation П. While "generation" is obviously an English word, the letter defining the generation (П) is cyrillic. It is clearly a parody of the term "Generation X". Especially considering that П here is the first letter of the Russian taboo word "пиздец meaning "bitter end of it all" in a very expressive way.
• Functional Addict: Tatarsky remains one in the course of the novel. He consumes fly-agarics, cocaine and acid but his mind is lucid ad he is always creative.
• God Couple: Tatarsky in the denouement of the novel is considered by the Great Goddess (Ishtar) worthy of becoming her husaband (Marduk) so they form the one. Technically a 3-D model of Babylen is produced and that model becomes the spouse of Ishtar.
• A God Is You: That's how Tatarsky is greeted after his predecessor, Azadovsky, is strangled by the jumping rope and he becomes the virtual husband of Ishtar.
  I bow before the living god.
• Gratuitous English: Original advert slogans in English are justified. However the novel has several instances of this. Like using the word loser written in Latin letters instead of the existing Russian equivalent or at least the Cyrillic transliteration. Of course Tropes Are Tools and Pelevin has his reasons for this.
• Gratuitous Latin: In his first script Tatarsky used one Latin expression from his book of Latin catch phrases. To invoke that the confectionary enterprise of his client will survive the economic instability. However his customer would soon be killed.
  Mediis tempestatibus placidus (Calm in the midst of the storm)
• Happy Ending: Generally. Babylen Tatarsky reaches the very top of the power structure in the Masquerade. He is now the virtual husband of the goddess Ishtar and the chief of all advertising industry.
• Hermit Guru: Guireev is a but of this. He lives in the country though at times visits Moscow. Also he teaches Tatarsky some spiritual truths.
• High-Class Call Girl: Tatarsky once wakes up in his bed next to a beautiful prostitute (charging 1000 bucks a night) who is indistinguishable from Claudia Schiffer.
• Higher Understanding Through Drugs: Tatarsky manages to reach it indeed. Various substances provide him with some pieces of knowledge.
  • During his first trip from fly-agarics tea he manages to invent a good commercial slogan for the Parliament cigarettes brand which is approved and payed for by his boss.
• Historical Domain Character: Mostly they are mentioned but Berezovsky and Raduev are (probably) the characters, though it remains a Mind Screw.
• Humans Are Cthulhu: Invoked by Tatarsky. Farsuk reveals to him that the main task of their conspiracy is to keep asleep the five-legged canine god Pizdets (Пиздец, translated as "the end of it all", on the global scale it might mean Armageddon, in one translation it is named "Phukkup") because if he wakes, the world would perish in the general pizdets. Later Tatarsky supposes that they all (him and other people partial to the conspiracy) might be that pizdets and they are now happening to the unsuspecting world.
• Ignorance Is Bliss: Invoked by Morkovin, who says that oi polloi who ignore the inner proceedings (of the television and advertising world) are carefree compared to the people aware of the conspiracy, like him and Tatarsky. Therefore they have it much easier.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Two bodyguards of the agent of Narodnaya Volya in a dingy pub appear to have graduated from this very institution. When Tatarsky reveals the real employment of their protectee, the latter orders his goons to kill the indiscrete on the spot. They shoot at Vavilen several times but he flees scene unharmed.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes:
  • Once Tatarsky is made to wear an infamous red jacket for a meeting with a promising client to look more imposing. This piece of the clothing was stereotyped to be worn by brainless nouveau riches in The '90s and became laughed at nearly immediately.
  • Azadovsky appears to be usually dressed this way:
    He (Azadovsky) was wearing a 'pleb's orgasm' jacket - neither business uniform nor pyjamas, but something quite excessively camivalesque, the kind of outfit in which particularly calculating businessmen attire themselves when they want to make their partners feel things are going so well for them they don't have to bother about business at all.
• In Vino Veritas: Vladimir Tatarsky's secret is that he was named Babylen (Vavilen) at birth. Khanin tells him that he knows that Tatarsky is "Vava", rather than "Vova" because he revealed the fact to his former boss, Pugin, while drunk. Tatarsky does not remember telling that but admits that it might be true though not very probable.
• Initiation Ceremony: In the penultimate chapter Tatarsky is initiated by Azadovsky and Farsuk into the Chaldean Guild - the group of The Illuminati who rule Russia. It is a routine procedure but for one moment: Vavilen should look into the Ishtar's sacred eye so that she determines whether she recognises her husband, Marduk, in him. Azadovsky is the current husband and believes that the Great Goddess does not need a new one. If this is the case Tatarsly would go on working as a full-fledged member of the Ancient Conspiracy. However, Ishtar signals that Tatarsky is her new consort. Azadovsky is immediately strangled and Vavilen is proclaimed god.
• Ironic Nickname: Wee Vova who is a gangster is actually a big guy.
• It's Snowing Cocaine: On the floor carpet in the Azadovsky's cabinet. The boss himself constantly consumes the powder of life and treats his visitors (Tatarsky and Morkovin) to the same precious substance.
• Killed Offscreen: That's what happens to Khanin, the second boss of Tatarsky. Babylen learns of his death only post-factum because of the chance mention by Sasha Blo.
• King Incognito: Invoked by the agents of Narodnaya Volya. They keep telling unsuspecting citizens that they have recently encountered some famous statesman in disguise engaged in a mundane activity, like buying a jar of marinated tomatoes in the store. Thus said agents prove that those politicians actually exist in flesh albeit no ordinary man saw them ouside of television.
• Literalist Snarking: Sasha Blo writes for food numerous articles about fishy subjects published in several tabloids. Among other things he describes "cult porn films". Tatarsky would agree that those exist only if one would present him the adherents of that cult.
• Lonely at the Top: Invoked by Azadovsky, who says that he has been alone all his life. Though one can remember that early in the novel a story is told how he came to Moscow from province, married a woman and stripped her of her appartment.
• Louis Cypher: That's who Leonid (Legion) Azadovsky turns out to be. He observes that his actual name, Legion, is mentioned in the Bible. In fact in two gospels (Mark and Luke) Jesus exorcises a man and asks the demon who possesses the victim, what is his name. The demon answers Legion, implying that actually numerous demons possess him).
• The Man Behind the Man: Tatarsky knows Azadovsky as his big boss. However Azadovsky near the ending mentions that another person runs the things. Enter Farsuk Seiful-Farseykin. Then in the dialogue with Tatarsky, Farsuk confesses, that there is some entity above him as well. However he ostensibly does not know who they are and recommends Tatarsky to stop thinkng about that.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The Sirruf during his first appearance is generally definied to be a dragon. He is huge in size, has mane, wings and rainbow scales.
• The Man Is Sticking It to the Man Mentioned in regard to Che Guevara T-shirts which sell huge figures as crowds buy them to express their protest, in the process enriching the corporation producing the item.
  Hanging above the counter was a black teeshirt with a portrait of Che Guevara and the inscription:'Rage Against the Machine'. On the piece of cardboard under the teeshirt it said: 'Bestseller of the month!' There was nothing surprising about that - Tatarsky knew very well (he had even written about it in one of his concepts) that in the area of radical youth culture nothing sells as well as well-packaged and politically correct rebellion against a world that is ruled by political correctness and in which everything is packaged to be sold
• Marriage to a God: That's what happens to Tatarsky. He (or technically his 3D model) becomes a virtual husband of the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar just after her previous husband, Azadovsky, is strangled with a jumping rope. This status requires from a spouse to appear in as many commercials as possible (both starring and as an extra). That's because the ancient conspiracy now runs the world though advertising.
• Masquerade: That's how the world is ruled. People behind the scene pull the strings through TV programming and advertisement, manipulating unsuspecting people. Even politicians are less than their puppets, they are actually all mere figments of advertisement. Or are they?
• Meaningful Name:
  • Babylen/Vavilen Tatarsky's name was formed by his father from the names of Vasily Aksenov and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. By some chance it is very similar to the name of the ancient Mesopotamian metropolis Babylon (Vavilon in Russian).
  • The surname of the episodic Butt-Monkey character Mikhail Nepoiman is ironical as it means exactly "Uncaught".
• Meet the New Boss: Tatarsky. nearly immediately after the body of Azadovsky is rolled away, talks to Azadovsly's secretary, Alla, whom he also inherited. In this very conversation he lectures her just to discipline his "new" subordinate.
  -'I bow before the living god,' Alla's voice replied. 'What are your instructions for today, boss?'
  'None yet,' Tatarsky replied, amazed to sense that he could play his new part without the slightest effort. 'Although, you know what. Alla, there will be a few after all. Firstly, have the carpet in the office taken up - I'm fed up with it. Secondly, make sure that from today on there's nothing but Coca-Cola in the buffet, no Pepsi. Thirdly, Malyuta doesn't work for us any more . . . because he's about as much use to us as a fifth leg to a dog. All he does is spoil other people's scenarios, and then the mazuma has to go back . . . And you. Alla my love, remember: if I say something, you don't ask "why?", you just jot it down. You follow? That's all right then.'
• MentorArchetype: Morkovin is the one for Tatarsky, he gives answers to his naive questions and secures his promotion in the hierarchy of The Illuminati.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Subverted for Morkovin. He is the only character, who has been Tatarsky's superior,that survives in the end (though Hussein might be the second one).
  • Also Guireev is the spiritual guru of Tatarsky and he seems to survive too.
• Metaphorgotten Wee Vova the gangster is very anxious to invent a viable national idea for Russia. He is concerned that people are keen only on dough. He notices that something else should be behind the dough. Just dough cannot be behind the dough because then it is not clear why one part of dough is in front while the rest of the dough is behind.
• Milkman Conspiracy: Played with. Media corporation might be more influential than titular milkmen however in this book they run all the things drawing their strength from ancient gods who rule through them. Army, secret services and bureaucracy are not mentioned. Gangsters still appear but are promptly killed off and never mentioned afterwards.
• Mind Rape: That's how the Sirruf punishes Tatarsky for consuming an LSD stamp which is a pass to a very dangerous zone for a person stronger than him. Reportedly it is not a product of happy Holland but came from some terrifying land.
  (The Sirruf)-But what did you eat it for?'
  'I wanted to feel the pulse of life,' Tatarsky said with a sob.
  'The pulse of life? Very well, feel it,' said the Sirruf.
  When Tatarsky came to his senses, the only thing in the world he wanted was that the experience he'd just been through and had no words to describe, merely a feeling of black horror, should never happen to him again. For that he was prepared to give absolutely anything.
  • Among other things Sirruf says that the amount of substance in the stamp is intended for five people, not one, and asks Tatarsky whether he is one person or five. Subsequently Tatarsky becomes five and all five feel so badly that they think it is great luck that all people are one and it is weird that they don't appreciate it.
• Mind Screw: Media tycoon Berezovsky and Chechen terrorist Raduev are the characters in the videotape, cooked by the Azadovsky's agency on the script by Tatarsky and aimed to discredit both its heroes. In the record Berezovsky and Raduev talk about dividing the assets of the mother-Russia (including her oil wells and TV channels), which should further enrage the TV audience, for whom both these characters also served as a Hate Sink IRL ^note (with much more reason in the case of Raduev as he was an obvious terrorist). As this record is fabricated, the novel seems to imply that Berezovsky and Raduev are invented to misdirect the anger of the populace and do not really exist in-universe. But then Tatarsky is given two swell sums of money from two envelopes ostensibly sent to Morkovin by both Berezovsky and Raduev even though Tatarsky and Morkovin are still sure that both do not exist. In the end Morkovin once again invokes You Do Not Want To Know to Tatarsky.
  • It is also noteworthy that both characters remunerate Morkovin and Tatarsky for the fabricated record where they are portrayed in a bad light.
    • The latter part is explained by Azadovsky. He randomly scoffs that Tatarsky should be on the payroll of Berezovsky and Raduev, because Berezovsky in this video promises to build a mosque and Raduev talks like a professor. Even though both are obviously villanous they still look too good for Azadovsky. However after the first criticism he generally approves of the footage but with his own alterations.
• Monster Threat Expiration: When Tatarsky eats an LSD stamp, he sees the Sirruf, a tremendous dragon-like monster who tortures him. When he later eats fly-agarics, he hallucinates the Sirruf in the shape of the inoffensive donkey (somehow Tatarsky still knows that it's the same Sirruf). He is mounyed by Guireev and the former monster looks sad and exhausted.
• Most Writers Are Writers: Babylen Tatarsky is a copywriter. An advertising copywriter.
• Mushroom Samba: The novel has three instances of this. Tatarsky consumes an LSD stamp as well as fly-agarics purchased from Guireev (twice) and has various, at times nighmarish, experiences.
  • When Tatarsky first drinks the fly-agarics tea, prepared by Guireev, he soon starts hallucinating and speaks in spoonerisms. Later he mounts a ziggurat and hallucinates on its top level.
  • When he takes an LSD stamp, it turns out that this drug was supposed for someone more powerful than him (also for five of them). He is visited and tormented by the Mesopotamian monster mushkhushshu or sirrush (its name in this novel is given as Sirruf). The hellish creature explains that his stamp is a pass to a place Babylen is not strong enough to tread. A mind torture ensues.
  • When Tatarsky eats fly-agarics once more, things play out relatively tame. He does not lose his tongue. Instead, he ascends the same ziggurat once more finding three objects on his way. It means that he is ripe for marrying Ishtar.
  • Also Tatarsky is fond of cocaine.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Escalated. Wee Vova and his Russian gang arrive at the meeting with Chechens in two cars with all regular weapons. However their rivals attack their vehicles using two "Shmel" flamethrowers and poor Russian gangsters all perish.
• Newhart Phone Call: Both Azadovsky and Tatarsky have one each:
  • When Hussein brings Tatarsky to his place (essentially kidnapping him), Babylen's phone starts to ring. Husein tekes the phone from Tatarsy and speaks to Khanin, then to Wee Vova (who most probably explans him in tough expressions that Tatarsky is under his protection). At some point the dialog becomes heated. One can read only the lines of Husein but can also guess what Wee Vova says.
    Tatarsky realised from Hussein's expression that someone at the other end of the line had said something unthinkable.
    'I don't care who you are,' Hussein replied after a long pause. 'Send anyone you like . . . Yes . . . Send an entire regiment of your arsehole troops on tanks. Only you'd better warn them they're not going to find some wounded boy-scout from the White House in here, get it? What? You'll come yourself? Come on then ... Write down the address ...'
  • Azadovsky during the job interview of Tatarsky receives some calls. First he shouts into the phone: Have you found? (a bit) then search!!. Then another call follows and he says Great. Did you make the control?. Of course "the control shot" is implied here. The whole deal is obviously about the goons of Azadovsky finding and killing someone.
  • In the end Tatarsky already in the status of the living god orders Alla to dismiss Malyuta. Then (after a bit) he says "because he spoils other people's drafts and we lose money. And you, Alla, should not ask me why when I order you to do something, but jot everything down"
• No Antagonist: Most probably the novel plays this trope straight. Tatarsky never experiences regular hostility from any other character. The best candidate for Big Bad, Azadovsky, is fairly friendly to Tatarsky, especially considering that he is not the kindest of the lot. Tatarsky to an extent becomes his protege.
  • It can be argued that the actual antagonist in this novel is the whole situation in post-Soviet Russia with its materialism, soaring crime, lack of positive values and poverty.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Farsuk Seiful-Farseykin is a spoof of the actual Soviet TV anchor Farid Seiful-Mulyukov who specialised in the coverage of foreign affairs (exposing the evils of the Western capitalism, praising friendly pro-socialist third-world regimes and such on TV). He was a fairly big name in the Soviet Union, after its collapse people did not have any reason to know him - even for his memorable name. Pelevin scoffs the prototype even more, making Farsuk a German by origin who had to assume Tatar identity and name to make a career in the Soviet Russia. Of course in reality Seiful-Mulyukov was a born Tatar.
  • Also Farsuk sounds very much like "barsuk" which is the Russian for "badger", not a very honoured animal. While Farseykin is derived from Farce. Thus while the middle part of the name is similar both times, Pelevin ridiculises the first and the third part.
• No Name Given: Tha arc words of this novel are This game has no name. It will never be the same.' Thus these two words "no name" are somewhat important in the general scheme of the Author Tract.
  • Once Farsuk says to Tatarsky that a goddess, usually referred to as Ishtar, is actually a No Name goddess. Because since the Mesopotamian times the word to call her changed many times. So now she became a No Name brand. It is arguably more of the author trying to squeeze another mention of the words "no name" in the novel because elsewhere the goddess is simply referred to as Ishtar which people generally consider her name.
  • Also the canine deity Pizdets (Phukkup) is a No Name brand as per Farsuk (same reason as with Ishtar). However considering that he is called by a very strong Russian expletive one simply cannot forget his name.
• Noodle Incident: Wee Vova the gangster is nicknamed "The Nietzschean" due to some unspecified event in the past which visibly embarasses him now. It is both a mocking and a hint that he has an element of Wicked Cultured to him (though not much). Also Pelevin made references to Friedrich Nietzsche in his previous novel Buddha's Little Finger.
• No Such Agency: Interestingly, The Masquerade which runs the things in Russia also employs a secret group of sorts. It is cynically named Narodnaya Volya or People's Will after the notorious XIX century revolutionary terrorist organisation. It is staffed by around 100 agents who visit various places frequented by ordinary people (e.g. low level pubs) and tell them that they had an encounter with famous politicians. Since actually those politicians are all created by the megacomputer, the staff of Narodnaya Volya is employed to convince people that the statesmen whom they watch on TV really exist in flesh. Of course Tatarsky meets an agent of this service once and it nearly costs him life.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Tatarsky compares the work in the advertising industry to the prostitution. His comparison is actually unfavourable to copywriters because street hooker is payed by a john in advance and it does not matter whether he subsequently enjoys the intercourse. While an advertising copywriter has to let all these brands (like Tampako) enter his brain and soil his soul. And still if a customer does not like his advert or concept he can refuse to pay him. Khanin replies that it is true but their firm Privy Counsellor still will work on these conditions, because they can only survive that way.
  • The narrator once notices that businessmen and mid-level gangsters are generally the same thing (in The '90s' Russia).
  • Malyuta harbors violently anti-Western sentiment and makes Russian nationalist scripts while Seryozha, the admirer of the West, translates foreign scripts for commercials into Russian, then brings them to his boss. The resulting product from both, per Tatarsky, is generally similar.
• Number of the Beast: When Babylen begins working with Morkovin, he sents to his pager the message "Welcome to the route 666". Implying there is something demonic in the job in advertising.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: After Tatarsky is considered by goddess Ishtar worthy of being his next husband, her present consort, Azadovsky, is brutally killed. Perplexed by his fate, Tatarsky asks Farsuk Seiful-Farseykin whether he can decline the honor. The answer is "no", so Tatarsky indeed marries the goddess (virtually).
• Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Exactly this. As a ritual husband of the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, Tatarsky is obliged to appear in numerous commercials, often as an extra, at times as the main hero. The book ends with the plot of his favourite advert for the Tuborg beer, called "Sta, viator". In the video Tatarsky first walks on the country road, then stops by the fence as if some idea has just occurred to him, wipes his forehead with a handkerchief and then again sets out to the horizon.
  • The very last sentence specifies that it was rumoured that a version of this video with thirty Tatarskys following each other by the same road was shot, but it was never corroborated.
• One Nation Under Copyright: Quite probably under the Interbank Committee. The state agencies (including police and military) are nowhere to be seen, bar for the tanks on TV which shoot at the White House. The president and other statesmen are seen on TV, because the footage of them is produced in the Interbank Committee, but do not exist in the real life. It appears that Russia is ruled by the media corporation headed by Azadovsky. He can administer justice, openly ordering the execution people who let him down. Even a huge real-life economic crisis is cause by the virus in the system of the Interbank Committee.
  'Aagh, no,' Morkovin said with a grimace, 'please, not that. By his very nature every politician is just a television broadcast. Even if we do sit a live human being in front of the camera, his speeches are going to be written by a team of speechwriters, his jackets are going to be chosen by a group of stylists, and his decisions are going to be taken by the Interbank Committee. And what if he suddenly has a stroke - are we supposed to set up the whole shebang all over again?'
  • When Tatarsky comes to power, it also becomes OnceNationUnderCopywriter.
• One-Steve Limit: Wee Vova is formally a namesake of Vladimir Tatarsky. Except that Vladimir Tatarsky was originally named Vavilen at his birth and is generally remembered as such.
• Open the Door and See All the People: Tatarky is blindfolded. When his blindfold is taken off and the lights are on, it turns out he is completely naked in a big hall where a reception in his honor is gong on. The guests (including females) watch his nudity unimpressed, hardly noticing it.
• Parody Commercial: Many of those.
  • In his first experience Tatarsky writes a script of a commercial for the cofectionery business which includes the quote from Ecclesiastes 1:4. That's because when Babylen converses with the physics teacher-turned-businessowner the latter confesses that he is very anxious about the general post-Soviet instability, never knowing what would happen tomorrow. The plot of the advert offered by Babylen includes the solid rock which remains on its spot while the rest of the earth collapses and goes under the water. This draft pleased the customer and he indeed bought the script.
    Generations come and generations go,
    but the earth remains forever.
    • Complete with the Gratuitous Latin slogan on the unshakable rock:
  Mediis tempestatibus placidus. (Calm in the midst of the storm)
  Lefortovo Confectionery Factory)

  • In any case soon Tatarsky learns that his first customer has been killed (found with his mouth gagged by his own pastry), so the commercial would never be shot (at least Babylen already received his 2.000 bucks)
  • Much later he cooks a slogan for Davidoff Lights cigarettes simply taking a famous quote from the same book:
    For with much wisdom is much sorrow;
    as knowledge increases, grief increases.
    Davidoff Lights
  • His script for Ariel Laundry Detergent is predictably based on The Tempest. Here the girl Miranda prefers the product branded Ariel to the other, generic, detergent, called Caliban.
  • Tatarsky's script for the Nescafe Gold commerical is about a young man with hard face who makes a car with a crooked banker inside explode, then pours the coffee from the thermos into his cup and savours it.
  • Also there is a script for the commercial for Calvin Klein (not by Tatarsky, found in the archive of Pugin after his death):
    An elegant, rather effeminate Hamlet (general stylisation—unisex) in black tights and a light blue tunic worn next to the skin, wanders slowly around a graveyard. Beside one of the graves he halts, bends down and picks up a pink skull out of the grass.
    Close-up: Hamlet knitting his brows slightly as he gazes at the skull. View from the rear: close-up of taut buttocks with the letters 'CK'.
    New camera angle: skull, hand, letters 'CK' on the blue tunic.
    Next frame: Hamlet tosses the skull in to the air and kicks it. The skull soars upwards, then arcs back down and falls straight through the bronze wreath held by a bronze angel on one of the graves, just as though it were a basketball hoop. Slogan: JUST BE. CALVIN KLEIN
  • Malyuta the jingoist Russian copyrighter has his moments too. In his script for the Nike commercial the last American prisoners in Vietnam work in the sweatshop, sewing the Nike runners. Suddenly they get discontent and start knocking on their tables with the shoes they make to protest poor living and labor conditions. Then the guard shoots some rounds in the ceiling, points at the unfinished runner and orders a prisoner: "Just do it"!
    • Aggravated by the fact that antisemitic Malyuta added to the script in pencil that all imprisoned soldiers have curly hair and hooked noses to lampshade their ethnicity.
  • Tatarsky on drugs creates a slogan which is a retort to Nike from Reebok:
    Do it yourself, motherfucker. Reebok
  • An advert for the cigarettes brand Parliament by Tatarsky is based on the famous episode when the Russian parliament was shot at from the tanks. Its slogan is borrowed from Woe from Wit.
    We find the smoke of Homeland best.
  • Tatarsky also made the following slogan for the tourist firm arranging trips to Acapulco:
    WOW! ACAPULYPSE NOW!
  • Later Sasha Blo (whose actual name is Eduard Debirsyan) asks Tatarsky to think of a slogan for the funeral home belonging to his brothers. Tatarsky notices similarity of the name Debirsyan with de Beers and comes up with a satisfying line.
  Diamonds are NOT forever.
• Patriotic Fervor: For Wee Vova the gangster.
  But what we are, is Russia! Makes you frightened to think of it! A great country!
• Pay Evil unto Evil: A businessman orders from Tatarsky a concept of an advertisng campaign for his Tampako soft drinks enterprise but rejects it only to later implement a fairly similar conception, not paying a due remuneration to Babylen. Later Tatarsky sees that very businessman in the den of a gangster, obviously kidnapped. He does nothing to help him.
• Pen Name: Saha Blo is actually named Eduard Debirsyan.
• Phoney Call: Its version for the pager. When Tatarsky is at the meeting with his first client, Morkovin sends a message "welcome to route 666" to his pager. His colleague asks him, whether the message is from Video International (a big Russia advertising company). Tatarsky replies that he told those losers not to call him any more and this message is from Slava Zaytsev (the most acclaimed Russian couturier with a kitschy image) but they won't have meeting today because he's engaged now. Of course it is all a ruse to impress a client in the room.
• Plot Armor: Tatarsky obviously has one. He cannot be killed as the whole of novel is centered around him. It is no spoiler that in the end he survives even though around him characters are dropping like flies.
• Poor Communication Kills: When Tatarsky by chance meets in the pub an agent of Narodaya Volya (see No Such Agency), he whispers to him the name of his secret service. The agent promply gives a signal to his bodyguards to kill the indiscrete busybody. Tatarsky barely escapes the pub, then the guards of Azadovsly intervene and overpower the bodyguards, beating them to a pulp. However Vavilen runs away, abandoning the party and visits the ziggurat which he has already mounted once.
• Pop Culture Symbology: The Babylonian goddess Ishtar is represented in the physical world by the totality of advertising images.
• Precision F-Strike: In the elevator Tatarsky uses working in the Privy Counsellor advertising Agency there is a huge graffito (modeled after an advert for the whisky brand Jim Beam). It includes a big three-letter Russian word, the main profanity in the language (expressing approximately the same emotion as "fuck you"). The slogan you always get back to the basics (in English in the original) in smaller letters is added below.
• Product Placement: Naturally Pelevin mentions plenties of actually existing brands in this novel.
• Puppet State: Russia is in fact this. It is heavily dependent on the USA in the field of IT, crucial for the emulation of its political system. Americans provide Russians (their mass-media cum advertising agencies) with the computer "frequency" of a certain value. This value determins the processing capacity of the megacomputer (also produced by the American company Silicon Graphics and shipped to Russia) which is used to make videos featuring Russian politicians, including the president himself. Thus when USA want to punish Russia (e.g. for its position in the Kosovo conflict) they implement sanctions, lowering the frequency, used by the megacomputer in Russia. Then the quality of the TV picture worsens and Russian politicians look much less convincing.
• Put on the Bus: Two first bosses of Tatarsky are dealt with when the plot requires it:
  • First Pugin is killed in a weird way. Tatarsky then starts working for Khanin. the chief of Privy Counsellor agency who also by some reason inherits the copywriting drafts of the Pugin's firm.
  • Later Khanin has to wrap up his activities after Wee Vova, his protector, is kiled by Chechen gangsters. Khanin is immediately approached by various other gangs eager to offer their protective services but prefers to quit instead. When they part ways Tatarsky meets Morkovin again. The latter then introduces him to Azadovsky and the things will never be the same again. Some time after Sasha Blo tells Tatarsky that Khanin has also been killed either by Chechens or by cops, no-one knows for sure.
• Pyramid Power: Its close variation, ziggurat power, actually ziggurats predated pyramids. As ancient Mesopotamians erected pyramid-like ziggurats, the version of this structure near Moscow is a significant landmark for Tatarsky (who lives in the world still ruled by Mesopotamian gods). This ziggurat is said to be an incomplete radar station partially built for the military in the Soviet time then abandoned.
  • At first he rises to the top of an uncompleted ziggurat under the influence of fly-agarics and has some visions there.
  • Near the end during a trip with Azadovsky and his retinue he notices a distant ziggurat, the same as in the first case. Tatarsky is struck by this sight and then leaves the company, visits Guireev to consume fly-agarics once more and rises to the top of construction to pick up three objects he needs to marry Ishtar.
  • Azadovsky is also prone to this. He knows about the same ziggurat and, being a magnate, wants to buy it and to build a mansion for himself out of it. That does not happen.
• Rags to Royalty: Both Azadovsky and Tatarsky start as regular Soviet men, i.e. quite poor. Each of them becomes a living god .
• Resignations Not Accepted: Tatarsky gets hired by the Chechens. Having worked with them for a year he meets Morkovin, his college mate, who invites him to change the field. Tatarsky promptly quits his job without notifying his boss Hussein because it is widely accepted that Chechens demand a solid severance from the outsiders who join their business and then try to leave it. It is noteworthy that Tatarsky worked for Chechens as a mere seller in a stall for wages.
  • Much later Tatarsky meets Husein (when he deliberately goes near his stall which he avoided until then). Husein essentially kidnaps him although without violence, by mere intimidation. Then Wee Vova comes and sets Babylen free. Everything ends good for Tatarsky because of Plot Armour but Wee Vova sets an appointment with Hussein next day and perishes in the fire of a flamethrower.
• Russian Reversal: Once a salesgirl in the metaphysical store "Path to yourself" applies it when Tatarsky asks her one question too many:
  -(Tatarsky) Interesting. But how will the spirits guess that I'm in advertising? Is it written on my forehead or something?
  - No, said the girl. It's written on the adverts that they came out of your forehead.
• Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: Russian bandits, like Wee Vova, are implied to be less determined and cruel than Chechen gangsters.
• Reference Overdosed: Indeed. Pelevim mentions or refers to numerous brands, books (quotes from them), concepts, memes and whatnot.
• Rule of Three: Several instances.
  • Tatarsky consumes drugs thrice. The first and the third time he eats fly-agarics (drinks a tea mae of Amanita). The second time he consumes a huge dose of acid.
  • Tatarsky has three bosses, Pugin, Khanin and Azadovsky, all of them are killed.
  • Also the novel plays with the trope These Questions Three.... It turns out that to marry a goddess Tatarsky, like ancient Babylonian males, does not have to answer three riddles while ascending the ziggurat. Instead he has to find in that very ziggurat three objects, connected with his life. Which he does.
• Seamless Spontaneous Lie: Tatarsky tries this with the Chechen Husein, his former employer, telling him that he now works with Azerbaijanis, named Rafil and Eldar, in the flower business. Tatarsky hopes to get off because Azerbaijanis are implied to protect him from Chechens. However Khanin rings him and later all this is dropped.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: The camouflaged man with a bottle of vodka in his hand, whom Tatarsky once sees from Mercedes and insolently asks, where he can find a clothing store to buy a shirt. The man is livid and throws a bottle of vodka destroying the read windshield of Babylen's car.
• Shout-Out: Malyuta the jingoist Russian copywriter shares his name with Malyuta Skuratov, The Dragon of Ivan the Terrible who was reputed to be even more cruel that the tsar himself.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The novel is 100% cynicism. Idealism is completely absent.
  • Once, when Tatarsky after an especially bad trip decides to speak to God (in this case meaning an Orthodox Christian God, not Ancient Mesopotamian deities), he at first repents his lifestyle. But then he begins to swag and gives the God marketing recommendations (fat donation from a rich businessman or gangster is more important than many small contributions from the poor, thus God and his servants should make the successful people their principal target audience). Tatarsky also tries to create a cool ad slogan for the Christian supreme being. Thus one fit of idealism immediately turns into more of the same.
• Snobs Vs Slobs: Tatarsky, driving a Mercedes, once addresses an unnecessary question to a grim man in camouflage on the sidewalk holding a bottle of vodka(he asks him where he can buy a shirt, just to feel superior). The man takes it to heart and notices that "he had it harder at Candahar". Tatarsky realises that the man is livid and spoeeds away. Still the man throws a bottle and destroys the rear windschield of hero's Mercedes.
• Spoonerism: Tatarsky starts to talk in those during the Mushroom Samba after he for the first time drinks fly-agaric tee offered by Guireev. The latter is frightened and runs away.
  • In one English translation he pronounces phrases like: "'Li'd winker drike I watof!'" (I'd like to drink water) and "Stan gou thecation totet yell he mow? There trun rewains" (Tell me how can I go to thew station? Where trains run.)
• Status Cell Phone: After Tatarsky becomes a living god, replacing Azadovsky, Farsul gives him the little black cellphone of the deceased. It look like a regular Philips model except that it has only one button shaped like a golden eye. When the hero pushes the button, responds Alla, the secretary of Azadovsly who is ready to serve the new boss.
• Summoning Artifact: A planchette complete with a gel pen can be used to summon the spirit of Che Guevara who then will put down his thoughts on paper charged in the planchette. Of course wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt does not harm.
• Surprisingly Similar Characters: Pugin, the first boss of Tatarsky is quite similar to Khanin, his second boss.
  • Well, Pugin sports a mustache while Khanin sports a beard.
• Survival Mantra: Played for Laughs. When Tatarsky during a very bad acid trip somewhat collects himself, he calls Guireev, his spiritual guru, and asks for a mantra against the drug overdose. Guireev at first refuses, because a mantra should be conferred but later caves in and tells Om melafefon bva kha sha. Babylen starts to repeat the words and soon a burning bush emerges in his room. Then a hand sticks out of this bush and hands him out a cucumber. Next day Guireev confesses that the "mantra" actually means "Please, give me another cucumber" in Hebrew, currently studied by his wife. Because no-one can give an actual mantra without conferring.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Sasha Blo and Malyuta Skuratov strangle Azadovsky with a jumping skirt and Tatarsky probably has a moment of Alas, Poor Villain, They are mere executors though and it is Farsuk Seiful-Farseykin who organised it all. Farsuk then puts Azadovsky's dead body in a huge green ball and orders to roll it away. Soon Farsuk is killed in his stairwell, mysteriously smothered by the jumping rope. At his funeral Tatarsky consoles his grieving widow and throws a small green ball in his coffin. Might be, that Tatarsky did not only wish to avenge the death of his predecessor but also wanted to get rid of The Man Behind the Man, as Farsuk was said to actually control Azadovsky during his rule.
  • It needs to be mentioned that Tatarsky as a god immediately dismisses Malyuta from his organisation. Though it might be not due to his involvement in the strangling of Azadovsky. The reason can be his messing with other people's scripts in accordance with his Russian nationalist-patriotic agenda.
• Take That, Critics!: At times Pelevin is very blunt. A literary critic Pavel Bisinsky who is a character in a commercial for Gucci for men perfume, where he falls into the pit latrine full of liquid excrement (slogan: Be European, smell better) is obviously a revenge to Pavel Basinsky who earlier had been very negative of Buddha's Little Finger, a previous novel by Pelevin.
  • Funnily enough in a later interview Basinsky confessed that Generation P was the only work by Pelevin he really liked. Moreover he considered it the principal (Russian) novel of The '90s.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: That's why Chechen gangsters dig a trench (in the middle of the city no less), put there two Shmel flamethrowers and shoot Wee Vova's armoured car, killing him on the spot.
• These Questions Three...: Played with. Babylen reads in a thesis which once he picked up in the youth by chance and now found at his home, that in the Ancient Babylon one could become a spouse of the goddess Ishtar after he'd consumed some sacred fly-agarics then solved exactly three riddles in mounting the Babylonian ziggurat. Some scholars however believed that those three riddles were in fact three objects whose true meaning the applicant should have guessed correctly. Other scholars offered different interpretations.
  • When Tatarsky ascends the ziggurat near Moscow (under the influence of fly-agarics), he also picks up on the ground three objects: an empty Parliament Menthol cigarette pack with a hologram of three palms, a three-peso Cuban coin with a portrait of Che Guevara and a pencil-sharpener in the shape of television with an eye, drawn on its screen. These three objects are all linked to the things that happened to Babylen in the novel, so it is implied that he is ready to face the great goddess and marry her.
• Those Two Guys:
  • Seryozha, the western-minded advertising copywriter and Malyuta, his patriotic Russophile counterpart. Pelevin sarcastically remarks that their adverts were actually undistinguishable.
  • Later Malyuta forms such a couple with Sasha Blo and these two guys play a not insignificant tole in the denouement.
• Trigger-Happy: Hussein. That's why when Tatarsky meets him again, he does not run away but instead follows him to his den.
  Hussein's reflex response was to regard any fast-moving object larger than a dog and smaller than a car as a target.
• Unfortunate Names: Tatarsky believes that Tampoko, the juice and soft-drink brand has the one, due to its similarity to Tampax. He is ordered to create a brand concept for this company and comes with the idea to change it to Tampeko or Tampuko. The customers are ostensinly insulted. Later they still rename the firm, making it Tampako.
• Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: A very unpretty example. According to Farsuk, an ancient and very dangerous deity from Mesopotamian Mythology, named Pizdets, is sleeping in a distant (from Mesopotamia) northern land (meaning Russia). Its is a five-legged dog and his fifth leg obviously grows on the place of the regular canine's private parts. He should not wake or else everything is over for the humanity.
• The Voice: During Tatarsky's first trip under fly-agarics, as he ascends the ziggurat, he is talked to by the voice. Later this trope is subverted as The Voice turns out to be a tremendous Surruf.
• Weirdness Censor: Reaction to the whole person of Guireev by people who see him suits this trope to a tee. He looks so counter-culture and esoteric that others do not pay any attention to his person.
  ...he (Tatarsky) was astounded at the style of the clothes he (Guireev) was wearing - a light-blue cassock with a Nepalese waistcoat covered in embroidery worn over the top of it. In his hands he had something that looked like a large coffee-mill, covered all over with Tibetan symbols and decorated with coloured ribbons. He was turning its handle. Despite the extreme exoticism of every element of his get-up, in combination they appeared so natural that they somehow neutralised each other. None of the passers-by paid any attention to Gireiev. Just like a fire hydrant or an advertisement for Pepsi-Cola, he failed to register in their field of perception because he conveyed absolutely no new visual information.
• Welcomed to the Masquerade: That's what happens to Babylen Tatarsky. It is gradually revealed to him that Russia is governed by the Ancient Conspiracy through the advertising agency Interbank Committee. In the end he is promoted to a vital element of that conspiracy.
• Why We Are Bummed Communism Fell: Dominant attitude in this book. Pelevin in an author filibuster rejects the Soviet system but talks even more scathingly about the post-Soviet orders.
  Tatarsky, of course, hated most of the manifestations of Soviet power, but he still couldn't understand why it was worth exchanging an evil empire for an evil banana republic that imported its bananas from Finland.
• Writer on Board: Pelevin expresses his own opinions quite frequently in this book.
• Writer's Block: Tatarsky experiences one when he is charged by Wee Vova to create the Russian national idea. (An obvious reference to regular reali-life attempts to find/invent/create the "Russian national idea"). He cannot think of anything. He summons the spirit of Fyodor Dostoevsky using the planchette but that spirit only draws several zigzags (which could also imply that the said idea is too transcendental and cannot be expressed verbally.)
• Write What You Know: In-Universe it is subverted for Sasha Blo. He writes for papers numerous articles about drugs, perversions and "cult porn movies" which can make one think that he is full of vice, worse than Marquis de Sade and Charles Manson. Sctually he is a fat, balding, not very healthy father of a family. He writes about juicy topics to pay his rent and feed his children.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Seryozha, the Western-minded (as opposed to the russophile Malyuta) advertising copywriter. As he is a great admirer of the Westen practices, his work is reduced to translating western slogans and passing them for his own. Also he has an adviser from the West who definitely knows all tropes and memes of that great civilisation. Except that he consults the Pakistani Ali, his cocaine dealer, who indeed has lived for long time in LA. Seryozha is an episodic character though and nothing happens to him.
  • Also Seryozha tries to look as a real Westerner. Because of that he dresses in the way which makes him look very Russian and in an obsolete way.
• You Are the Translated Foreign Word: Once Tatarsky develops a brand concept for the firm Tampako, a soft drinks producer, which does not satisfy the client. Tatarsky criticises their brand name for its similarity to Tampax which offends customers. Also Tatarsky advises them to make the main symbol of their advertising campaign a sequoia tree (as a species associated with the USA) with dollar bills for leaves. Turns out sequoia is a conifer. As a result they send a letter to his boss, demanding that this schlemazel (a bit of gratuitous Yiddish), meaning Tatarsky, would never have anything to do with their orders.
  • Later it turns out that they actually followed Babylen's advice and indeed changed their brand name to Tampoko. Never paying him, of course.
• You Do Not Want To Know: People who gradually reveal Masquerade to Tatarsky answer some of his questions about how things are actually (clandestinely) done by The Illuminati. However oftentimes they refuse him answers, invoking this trope.
  • In particular, when Tatarsky is already selected a living god, he asks Farsuk: "and still who is the ultimate ruler beyond all this?" Farsuk advises him not to think about that, just forget, in that case he will last longer as the living god. Farsuk himself does not live long after that, though.

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2011 film additionally provides the examples of:

• Adaptational Attractiveness: Dmitry Pugin is described in the novel as a mustached man with button eyes. He is played by the handsome actor Igor Mirkurbanov and lacks any mustache.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Azadovsky is a redhead in the novel, in the film he is played by Mikhail Efremov who has partly dark partly grey hair.
• Adaptation Expansion: The book Generation P had been published just several months before Putin was brought to power in Russia. Hence Pelevin could not reflect this very important development. In the film version its creators did not miss the chance to treat the crucial presidential elections Generation P-style. Here Azadovsky, Tatarsky and Co find a model for their virtual candidate for Russian presidency. It is Kolya Smirnov, a boorish chaffeur of Tatarsky (absent in the novel). His 3-D model is produced, Azadovsly's organisation heavily promotes it on TV and people indeed elect him/it as a president.
• Bland-Name Product: Used for politicians. While the source novel openly mentions Chubais and Lebed, famous Russian piliticaisn, in the movie they are renamed to very generic surnames, like Smirnov and Petrov.
• Large Ham: Mikhail Efremov, playing Azadovsky, hams it up even though the character is not very cold-blooded in the novel.

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