[1] In 1923 Mikhail Bulgakov met Nikolai Semenovich Angarskiy, who was the senior editor and manager of the almanac Nedra.

After making acquaintance, Angarskiy subsequently began publishing Bulgakov's stories in the journal, such as The Fatal Eggs and others.

[2] Literary critic Yevgeny Zamyatin lauded the story for its cinematic structure and blend of the fantastic and everyday.

The factory is marked by disorder - employees receive their wages with constant delays; they are paid not with money, but with matches; and the management changes inexplicably often for unknown reasons.

[6] The story's main character, Korotkov, is portrayed as the classical "little man" literary hero that appeared in Russian literature during the realism epoch.