 In a chapter called “The Root From Issyk-Kul,” Kostoglotov’s doctor discovers a vial of dark fluid in his bedside table, prompting Kostoglotov to explain that it’s an extract of a root used by natural healers in Russia to cure cancer.Solzhenitsyn himself ingested the same root extract before his cancer went into remission.Kostoglotov is depicted as having been born in Leningrad, whereas Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk.