Salon

Thirty-five years have passed since Venedikt Yerofeyev, an electrician, writer and amateur philosopher, wrote what he called his "poem" titled "Moskva-Petushki." Moskva, as we know, is Moscow; Petushki is a small town some 120 kilometers away, in the direction of the Volga River. This amazing little book was translated into English several times, always dropping the unfamiliar "Petushki" from the title for more accessible monikers like "Moscow to the End of the Line," "Moscow Stations" and "Moscow Circles."

The hero of the novella is Venichka (short for Venedikt), an alcoholic up before the liquor shops open (there were no round-the-clock stores during Leonid Brezhnev's reign) and trying, despite his hangover and anxiety, to make his way to Petushki, where he expects to pay a visit to the woman of his dreams and his infant son.

Venichka's disorientation, as it turns out, is part of his nature. "Everyone talks about the Kremlin," says the drunk, who was apparently born in Moscow. "I have heard about it from many people, but I have never seen it myself." That is how the story starts, and it doesn't get more realistic. On his way to Petushki, Venichka engages in fiery philosophical discussions with fellow drinkers about literature, history and music, talks to God, recounts the story of a revolution he began that flopped because nobody noticed, and fraternizes with angels, who chastise him, argue with him and by the very end turn into the thugs who murder him.

Drunk as he may be, Venichka never loses his train of thought, and skillfully sustains the reader's attention by describing imaginary cocktails made from cheap perfume and antifreeze. The stylistic perfection of the novella is remarkable. The chapters are named after stations on the railroad line from Moscow to Petushki, with the "Hammer and Sickle -- Karacharovo" entry consisting of just one line, "And then I had a drink," presumably because the following pages would have contained nothing but obscenities.

Passed around in samizdat copies and extensively published abroad, Yerofeyev's "poem" was only officially printed in Russia in 1989, just one year before the author died of throat cancer. For Western readers, it became a treasure trove of exotic Russian habits like vodka-drinking, and was illustrated accordingly on the covers of English, French and German translations. In Russia, Yerofeyev's alcoholic tradition was carried on by writers such as Vyacheslav Pyetsukh and Sergei Gandlevsky, as well as in Alexei Ivanov's recent novel "The Geographer Boozed the Globe Away" (Geograf Globus Propil) -- but it never regained the metaphysical heights reached by Venichka, who talked to the angels.

Quotes are from "Moscow Circles," translated by J.R. Dorrel.