Meksikansk (apparently, the Antiterran name of Mexico
city) hints at meksikanskiy tushkan ("Mexican jerboa"), Ellochka the
Cannibal's "chic" fur in Ilf and Petrov's The Twelve Chairs
(chapter XXII, "Ellochka the Cannibal"). See also my posts on Ada's and Marina's
furs, as well as on Cordula's ("Mme Perwitsky's") polecat.
Mexico city is where Trotsky was assassinated. Stalin had
"long arms" (as we say of a person who has so much power, influence
etc. that it is impossible to hide from or escape him) indeed. In The Twelve Chairs (chapter XIV, "The Union of
Sword and Plough") Ostap Bender warns the members of the "anti-Soviet" union in
Stargorod: u nas dlinnye ruki ("we have long arms").
In Ilf and Petrov's The Goden Calf (chapter XVI,
"Jahrbuch fuer Psychoanalytik") the absence of the Bering Strait ("the
ha-ha of a doubled ocean", as Van calls it in Ada, 1.3) on a map
of two hemispheres drives mad the poor geographer:
Географ сошёл с ума совершенно неожиданно:
однажды он взглянул на карту обоих полушарий и не нашёл на ней Берингова
пролива. Весь день старый учитель шарил по карте. Всё было на месте: и
Ньюфаундленд, и Суэцкий канал, и Мадагаскар, и Сандвичевы острова с главным
городом Гонолулу, и даже вулкан Попокатепетль, а Берингов пролив
отсутствовал. (Everything was there [on the map], even the volcano
Popocatapetl, but no Bering Strait.)
As Mascodagama Van dances tango on his hands, while his
partner Rita sings a tango tune:
Pod znoynym nebom Argentiny,
Pod strastnyi govor mandoliny
'Neath the sultry sky of Argentina,
To the hot hum of mandolina.
Finaly, Rio de Janeiro is the city of Bender's dreams (in "The Golden
Calf").