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The Ivan Aufulich Papers
18. Nadya Averejbayr
It a development seemingly far removed from the intrigues of the Kremlin, Nadya Averejbayr ("Nadya" is a diminutive for "Nadyezhda" = "Hope"), a forest ranger in far northern Siberia, was awarded the Stakhanov medal (for exuberant overproduction) and promoted to supervisor. The news hardly made even the back pages of Pravda, much less the cables back home of the various embassies. But veteran observers made the connection to more momentous events: Nadya's maternal great grandmother was once (in Czarist days) a housekeeper for the paternal great granduncle of Vasily N. Dzheli (who you may recall was reported recently to have given a fare to cabbie Stepan Itvilya). This is yet another indication of the rehabilitation of Vasily, who of course is not (yet, but who knows where ambition and connections will take him?) important himself, but is, along with Katya Lyukin who (you may remember) did *not* design the name-tags for the Plenary Session of the Congress of Armored Vehicle Washers) a barometer for the rise and fall of the sausage-casing factories throughout northern Byelorus, which are now known to be a pet project, and hence a vulnerability, of the infamous V. R. Nahtamyuzd.
©1997 Grant Schampel