Nikos Kavvadias was a Greek poet, writer and a sailor by profession. He used his travels around the world, the life at sea and its adventures, as powerful metaphors for the escape of ordinary people, outside the boundaries of reality. His poems are widely regarded as belonging to symbolism, and he has been characterized by some as a poète maudit.

Ussuriysk is a city in Primorsky Krai, Russia, in the valley of the Razdolnaya River. The city is 98 kilometers (61 mi) north of Vladivostok, the administrative center of the krai, and about 60 kilometers (37 mi) from both the China–Russia border and the Pacific Ocean.