The time machine is one of those magical concepts which have the ability to capture the imagination of pretty much anyone who has lived at any point during history. Up there with the invisibility suit and the teleportation device as one of the three most widely desired neat scientific gizmos of all time (none of which have yet been invented, unfortunately) the time machine has enjoyed a substantial role in human culture. Mad scientists, children, science fiction authors, hopeless romantics, quantum physicists and compulsive gamblers have all deeply wished that they had a working prototype of a temporal relocator.

Bakhtin must also have had a secret longing for a time machine, although so far as we know, he was never a compulsive gambler, nor a quantum physicist, nor a science fiction author.

It is safe to assume, however, that he probably was a child at some point during his lifetime.