Was Pathologic inspired by Russian history?

[Oafish Philistine]

I can easily believe that in Tzarist Russia (early 20th century) there were remote settlements distant from Moscow whose communities suffered from illnesses the authorities were helpless to treat. The people in this village could easily have been waylaid...persuaded by their poverty and remoteness to begin worshipping idols of clay and ash. The east of Russia has many eastern peoples (altaic, uralic, chavchuveny etc) who continue practicing the old ways of their people...I suspect they provided the inspiration for the Haruspex who is a witch doctor/shamen figure.

Could Pathologic have been inspired by historical events in Russia?
Is the Sand Plague real?

[Real Sandwich]

While Ice-Pick Lodge - and more specifically, Nikolay Dybowski - haven't specifically pointed to any particular book or historical event as a main influence, there's no doubt Pathologic's world, characters and story draw heavily from Russian history (and just history in general).

An example just off the top of my head is the 1771 outbreak of bubonic plague in Moscow, which is probably the closest thing we'll get to a real-world inspiration of the Sand Plague.

[Platinum Mad]

Shortly speaking, Dybowski is a philologist so Pathologic is some kinda bunch of his ideas and knowledges of world literature and so on. Yep, Pathologic is not based on real history of Russia or any other country, but it does use Russia like a support for it's setting. By the way, some Russian revolutionaries' activity of 19-20th century with it's utopic slogans may have the same ideology with Bachelor's line like "Create/save utopic world where man will kick nature's ass and become closer to God's nature somehow". So plague and pandemic in this game is more like an instrument neither the main theme.

[Anderson]

Originally posted by Strongest:

Shortly speaking, Dybowski is a philologist so Pathologic is some kinda bunch of his ideas and knowledges of world literature and so on. Yep, Pathologic is not based on real history of Russia or any other country, but it does use Russia like a support for it's setting. By the way, some Russian revolutionaries' activity of 19-20th century with it's utopic slogans may have the same ideology with Bachelor's line like "Create/save utopic world where man will kick nature's ass and become closer to God's nature somehow". So plague and pandemic in this game is more like an instrument neither the main theme.

You're right in a way, but also in the literary world nothing is 100% certainly categoric. It isn't math after all. That's why we return to Pathologic.

[Lt Simon "Ghost" Riley]

From what i read, it seems the Town-on-Gorkhon is a place where the past and future coexist

it is one of many intentional contradictions/ironies present in the world of the Gorkhon river town

Ice-Pick's intention is to make the world as un-russian as possible so that it can have an open interpretation

Without spoiling anything, keep in mind the game's two main themes are: Flesh and Theatre

[Neko Natum]

As previous speakers said, Pathologic isn't based on some real historical event. But, I think, Town-on-Gorkhon can be created in the image of Fort Alexander I (also known as Plague Fort) near Saint Petersburg. There's an article in english wiki about this place. And Sand Plague, of course, isn't real, but can be based on anthrax more than on bubonic plague (in original, it called Песчаная Язва, that can be translated as Sand Ulcer). Also, knowing this, story can be inspired by outbreaks of anthrax in Siberia.