In 1854 "Sovremennik" magazine published several of Tolstoy's verses ("My bluebells", "Oh you haystacks..." and others), which instantly got critics talking, and also the first of Kozma Prutkov's humorously pompous poetic exercises. The latter was not so much a collective pseudonym, as a character who was making quite a point of coming across as a "real" creature, performing, among other things, obnoxious pranks, one of which involved a messenger visiting all the leading Saint Petersburg architects late at night with the urgent news of the Isaakiyevsky Cathedral having fallen down and urging them to appear early next morning at the court of Tsar Nikolay I, which they hastily did, to the Tsar's utter annoyance.