Tax officials apologized Monday for summoning famous writer Vasily Aksyonov — who died in 2009 — but whom they nevertheless wanted to interview as a witness, Interfax said.
A copy of a summons, sent in February and published by Ekho Moskvy on Saturday, said Aksyonov was to be interviewed about tax claims for his publisher, Astrel. Federal Tax Service head Mikhail Mishutin later publicly apologized to the writer's family for the mistake, which was blamed on a database error.