Like Solzhenitsyn, Kostoglotov is a former solder and GULAG prisoner in hospital for cancer treatment from internal perpetual exile in Kazakhstann. 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 the contents are an extract of a root used by natural healers in Russia to cure cancer. Solzhenitsyn ingested the same root extract before his cancer went into remission.[10] Kostoglotov is depicted as born in Leningrad, Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk.