Starik marks the end of a stage in Trifonov's career not readily appreciated by critics: where history, ideas and modern urban life are interwoven. In subsequent works Trifonov becomes interested in the interaction of the writer-figure and his time, and in particular in his own experience as a mirror of the national experience.

Vremia i mesto begins where Glebov fears to tread: with memories. The first few paragraphs begin: ‘Should one remember …?’, as the author recalls details of his childhood in the 1930s, and the first chapter ends with words that give meaning and structure to the whole novel: ‘Does one need to remember? Good God, that's as stupid as asking “does one need to live?” For remembering and living are of one piece, they are joined (slitno), the one cannot be destroyed without the other being destroyed, and together they form a verb that has no name’ (IV, 260).

This first chapter also informs us that Sasha Antipov, the central character, is eleven years old, that the action is set in the 1930s, and that Antipov's father, who has left for Kiev, will never return. Sasha's biography up to this point closely follows Trifonov's own (although Trifonov's own father disappeared not on the way to Kiev, but in Moscow), and there are further parallels as the narrative progresses.