That was a time when Boris Grebenschikov hardly got out of Great Britain, so that even his daughter would say, ?When will we go home, to London?? The home-sick ?Navigator? album had just been recorded at Mute Studios and Grebenschikov had by that time accumulated enough rage and giddiness for a new album, many of the songs from which were written at the same time as the songs ?Three Sisters? and ?Master Lukyanov.? There were even rumors that BG was going to call the album ?Alligator,? (according to other sources, the title ?Cyclone Center? was also being considered). So the second serious return from London was heralded by the happy and somewhat idiotic cries of ?oh, I?ll grow up to be a bull!? and other things. There were also the long-awaited ?beloved in the little bedroom,? the same ?beloved? that in another song wandered naked in the woods, and the driver who didn?t know where he was going or whom he was driving. There were the singing seraphim, and the famous ?Dubrovsky.? But the album that should have become an example of Russian-Buddhist self-irony came out as the contrived sardonic smile of a neurotic fed up with life. This neurosis reached maximum concentration in the wonderfully ominous ?Black Exterminator,? the one that had crossed out everything decadent or carefree in his life and left it behind. Next to this song, nothing else catered, neither the social allusions (?through the hole in the heavens there came a white Mercedes? and ?Turks build temples for Holy Russia in half an hour?) nor the exalted hymns about rail-train love.

Upon his return, Grebenschikov spoke of this album as one that had ?reached deeper levels of creativity? in comparison to ?Navigator.? Yes, it was true, this was a new stage, a new level- before this, the unwilling guru confused listeners by telling them one thing about himself while feeling something entirely different. In ?Snow Lion,? all of BG?s inner emotional battles finally burst into the open, and against his own will. What did the author want to say? He said what he didn?t want to say, but everyone understood him.