These uproariously funny stories of Russia's leading but outlawed humorist give a behind-the-scenes look at daily life in the Soviet Union -- a country of housing shortages and consumers' goods shortages, of inefficiency and bad roads, of bureaucracy and red tape, whose heroes are often fools, knaves, charlatans, fakers, poseurs.

Candid, spontaneous, immediate, his on-the-spot sketches reveal the Chaplinesque world of the Soviet little man who never wins, victim of himself, of history, of nature, or of all three.

Contents:

• Victoria Kazimirovna
• A Metropolitan Deal
• Confession
• What Good Are Relatives?
• The Aristocrat
• The Bathhouse
• The Patient
• Poverty
• The Overshoe
• The Economy Campaign
• The Actor
• Rachis [Paris]
• The Crisis
• Kitten and People
• The Electrician
• The Receipt
• M. P. Siniagin
• A Weak Container
• Bathhouse and People
• A Romantic Tale
• Poor Liza
• An Amusing Adventure
• Liaisons Dangereuses
• Personal Life
• My Professions
• Love
• On Pushkin's Anniversary
• Houses and People
• Rose-Marie
• The Story of My Illness
• A Happy Game
• A Last Unpleasantness
• An Instructive Story
• Kocherga (The Poker)
• The Photograph
• The Adventures of an Ape
• An Extraordinary Event
• In the Bathhouse
• Before the Sun Rises: A Novella