After the death of Vyacheslav Leontyev (4 October 2025),
the 87-year-old former head of the Pravda publishing
house — found beneath his seventh-floor window — this
sonnet stands as a sober reflection on Russia’s ongoing
method of silencing dissent. In a nation where critics
do not only vanish but “fall,” Gravity Is Loyal tries
to capture the bureaucratic coldness with which
inconvenient voices are erased.



From seventh floors and skyward steel they leap,
Not birds, but names erased by autumn’s breath.
Each window frames a silence, frozen deep,
Where truth takes flight — and meets a practiced death.

The ledgers close; the loyal mourn in code,
While gravity, that honest civil clerk,
Records another patriot’s last ode,
Filed neatly, duly stamped: “Accident — at work.”

They fall like pages torn from censored books,
Each spine unbroken, yet the words denied.
A nation learns the art of careful looks,
Where questions slip, and answers coincide.

And still the glass reflects the party line:
No crime occurred — except to cross the “sign“