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The Ivan Aufulich Papers
14. Sasha D. Lvigotfuryu
In the fallout from the ill-starred electric screwdriver deal, many overlooked the question of just what Pyotr Dar Podnar was going to do with them, once he got them from the American firm. Now it appears that his silent partner was the shadowy Sasha D. Lvigotfuryu ("Sasha" is a diminutive for "Aleksandr"), who is widely believed to have contacts within the amphibious forces. Of course that is not where they would have wound up, but those contacts would have enabled him to reach, through certain influential officials in Byelorussian duck collectives, the highest reaches of the Balalaika Artists' Union, where there are connections with the Construction Ministry. But now that the deal has fallen through, Sasha himself has had to scramble to avoid the fate of Kostya Plenti ("sent to serve on a collective" -- as fertilizer -- by the late Grisha Skidz) and Pyotr Dar Podnar (kept around only to serve as a whipping boy whenever it suits anyone higher up to whip up anti-American fervor). The betting within the network of Kremlin-watchers is that he will survive, but with diminished clout among the apparatchiki.
©1997 Grant Schampel