In his poem “I Do Not Look For Harmony In Nature,” Zabolotsky uses imagery of the river’s stillness and the sunset’s silence when describing the pain and isolation he feels amidst the dark Russian forest. The dark waters that grow quiet and “drop into exhaustion” are said to magnify a sense of pain for the narrator (Zabolotsky 177). Here, it seems that darkness and desolation transcend the boundary between nature and man through the elements of the environment itself: “human pain rises” up to the narrator “from the dark waters” around him (177). However, this is a passive and weak sense of connection between man and nature compared to man-made components of the landscape, which have expressive description, such as “glittering turbines, voices of labour, electric power,” and “construction” (177). It is man’s artificial impact, namely factory and production that supply the energy to the setting of this piece, rather than the silence and darkness of the natural environment.

In contrast to Zabolotsky, Valentin Rasputin characterize the Russian waterscape by the natural sounds and lively movements of its constituents in “Baikal.” These sounds and movements successfully transcend the boundary between man and nature. “Crying seagulls, falling snow,” and “fish playing in lavish abundance” are three distinct images that independently speak to the liveliness of nature around Lake Baikal (Rasputin 191). These sensory elements have a direct effect on Rasputin’s colleague, and in a similar sense to the still, dark images that cause pain to Zabolotsky’s narrator, transcend the boundary between man and nature, yet do so more actively by “lifting his spirits” (191). Whereas nature pales in comparison to industrialization in “I Do Not Look For Harmony In Nature,” and thus falls short of reaching harmony with man, an opposite result is achieved here, as Baikal, “created as a mystery of nature not for industrial requirements,” functions more actively in transcending boundary and thus inspiring the Colleague. It seems that Lake Baikal and its natural movement and sound extend far beyond the stifled attempts of Zabolotsky’s setting, largely due to the energy of nature itself, rather than the artificial energy of man’s industrialization in Zabolotsky’s poem.