Speaking of Sakhalin, a place of penal
servitude and exile until 1906 (as a result of the Russo-Japanese war in
1904-05, Russia lost half of the island to Japan), its Japanese name is
Karafuto (or Karaftu, as Chekhov, who spent in Sakhalin six
months in 1891 working very hard - of his own accord, not as a convict -
spells it his book "The Sakhalin Island," 1895).
KARAFTU = FAKTURA = FARTUK + A = FURKA + RA =
FRUKT + AA = KABAFUT + R - B (faktura is Russian for 'texture';
fartuk is Russian for 'apron'; Furka is a pass in the Swiss Alps
mentioned by Van in his Texture of Time treatise; by the way, Trofim
Fartukov is also mentioned in it; Ra is the son god in the ancient Egypt;
frukt is Russian for 'fruit'; Aa is a river in Latvia, not far
from Kurland but very far from the Kurils, it is true; Kabafut is the
nickname Khodasevich gave to Mayakovskiy, cabaret + futurist + cabotin;
this word is not in "The Décolleté Horse", Khodasevich's article on M., but VN
might have heard it directly from Khodasevich)
Speaking of Japan, during his brief stay in
Yokohama (Yokogama in Russian spelling), Passepartout, Phileas
Fogg's valet in Jules Vernes' "Around the World in Eighty Days," is engaged
as an acrobat in a local circus company.
Alexey Sklyarenko