diff --git a/engine/sphinx.php b/engine/sphinx.php
index da07e5d..34bed9b 100644
--- a/engine/sphinx.php
+++ b/engine/sphinx.php
@@ -71,10 +71,10 @@ function sphinx_client(): Sphinx\SphinxClient {
 
 function _sphinx_normalize(string $origstr): string {
     $buf = preg_replace('/[Ёё]/iu', 'е', $origstr);
-    if (!pcre_check_error($buf, no_error: true)) {
+    if (!pcre_no_error($buf, no_error: true)) {
         $origstr = mb_convert_encoding($origstr, 'UTF-8', 'UTF-8');
         $buf = preg_replace('/[Ёё]/iu', 'е', $origstr);
-        pcre_check_error($buf);
+        pcre_no_error($buf);
     }
     if ($buf === null) {
         logError(__METHOD__.': preg_replace() failed with error: '.preg_last_error().': '.preg_last_error_msg());
diff --git a/functions.php b/functions.php
index fd2270c..0b0161c 100644
--- a/functions.php
+++ b/functions.php
@@ -297,7 +297,7 @@ function is_retina(): bool { return isset($_COOKIE['is_retina']) && $_COOKIE['is
 function jsonEncode($obj): ?string { return json_encode($obj, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE) ?: null; }
 function jsonDecode($json) { return json_decode($json, true); }
 
-function pcre_check_error(mixed &$result, bool $no_error = false): bool {
+function pcre_no_error(mixed &$result, bool $no_error = false): bool {
     if ($result === null) {
         if (preg_last_error() !== PREG_NO_ERROR) {
             if (!$no_error)
diff --git a/htdocs/scss/app/blog.scss b/htdocs/scss/app/blog.scss
index 1abb189..c065e9d 100644
--- a/htdocs/scss/app/blog.scss
+++ b/htdocs/scss/app/blog.scss
@@ -505,4 +505,33 @@ body.wide .blog-post {
       margin-bottom: 0;
     }
   }
+}
+
+span.blog-footnote-ref, a.blog-ref {
+  display: inline-block;
+  color: $blog-ref-color;
+  font-family: "Liberation Mono", monospace;
+  font-size: $fs - 2px;
+  letter-spacing: -0.5px;
+}
+
+a.blog-ref {
+  @include no-underline();
+  padding: 0 1px;
+  margin-left: -2px;
+}
+@media (hover: hover) {
+  a.blog-ref:hover {
+    color: $blog-ref-color-hover;
+    background-color: $blog-ref-bg-hover;
+    border-radius: 3px;
+  }
+}
+
+p.blog-footnote-line:target {
+  background-color: $blog-ref-bg-hover;
+  border-radius: 3px;
+  a {
+    @include no-underline(true);
+  }
 }
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/htdocs/scss/app/common.scss b/htdocs/scss/app/common.scss
index 42f53c3..fe7da04 100644
--- a/htdocs/scss/app/common.scss
+++ b/htdocs/scss/app/common.scss
@@ -9,6 +9,9 @@
   height: 0;
 }
 
+html {
+  scroll-behavior: smooth;
+}
 html, body {
   padding: 0;
   margin: 0;
diff --git a/htdocs/scss/colors/dark.scss b/htdocs/scss/colors/dark.scss
index 76ff973..3ecbf18 100644
--- a/htdocs/scss/colors/dark.scss
+++ b/htdocs/scss/colors/dark.scss
@@ -50,6 +50,10 @@ $pn-button-current-text-color: $bg;
 
 $head-items-separator: #5e6264;
 
+$blog-ref-color: $dark-grey;
+$blog-ref-color-hover: #8c9aab;
+$blog-ref-bg-hover: $hover-hl;
+
 // colors from https://github.com/Kelbster/highlightjs-material-dark-theme/blob/master/css/materialdark.css
 $hljs_fg: #CDD3D8;
 $hljs_bg: #2B2B2D;
diff --git a/htdocs/scss/colors/light.scss b/htdocs/scss/colors/light.scss
index 33211bd..6162e8f 100644
--- a/htdocs/scss/colors/light.scss
+++ b/htdocs/scss/colors/light.scss
@@ -52,6 +52,10 @@ $pn-button-current-text-color: $fg;
 
 $head-items-separator: #d0d0d0;
 
+$blog-ref-color: #888;
+$blog-ref-color-hover: #6a88ab;
+$blog-ref-bg-hover: #f0f5fa;
+
 // github.com style (c) Vasily Polovnyov <vast@whiteants.net>
 $hljs_fg: #333;
 $hljs_bg: #f8f8f8;
diff --git a/lib/markup.php b/lib/markup.php
index d7f1f9a..067a523 100644
--- a/lib/markup.php
+++ b/lib/markup.php
@@ -11,9 +11,35 @@ class markup {
                                           bool $no_paragraph = false): string {
         $pd = new MyParsedown(useImagePreviews: $use_image_previews, lang: $lang);
         $html = $pd->text($md);
-        if ($no_paragraph) {
+
+        if ($no_paragraph)
             $html = preg_replace('/<p>(.*?)<\/p>/', '$1', $html);
+
+        else {
+            // collect references
+            $re = '/^<p>(\[([io]?\d{1,2})]) (.*?)<\/p>/m';
+            $result = preg_match_all($re, $html, $matches);
+            if (pcre_no_error($result)) {
+                $reftitles_map = [];
+                foreach ($matches[2] as $i => $refname) {
+                    $reftitles_map[$refname] = trim(strip_tags($matches[3][$i]));
+                }
+                $span_opening_tag = '<span class="blog-footnote-ref">';
+                $html = preg_replace($re, '<p class="blog-footnote-line" id="footnote_$2">'.$span_opening_tag.'$1</span> $3</p>', $html);
+                $re = '/'.implode('|', array_map(fn($m) => '(?:'.$span_opening_tag.')?'.preg_quote($m, '/'), $matches[1])).'/';
+                $html = preg_replace_callback($re,
+                function($match) use ($span_opening_tag, $reftitles_map) {
+                    if (str_starts_with($match[0], $span_opening_tag))
+                        return $match[0];
+                    if (!preg_match('/\[([io]?\d{1,2})]/', $match[0], $refmatch))
+                        return $match[0];
+                    $refname = $refmatch[1];
+                    $reftitle = $reftitles_map[$refname];
+                    return '<a href="#footnote_'.$refname.'" class="blog-ref" title="'.htmlescape($reftitle).'">'.$match[0].'</a>';
+                }, $html);
+            }
         }
+
         return $html;
     }