Kangaroo

Aleshkowsky wrote songs and prose that could be circulated in Soviet times only through samizdat. A distinctive feature of his works was the introduction into his literary texts of “uncensored” words and expressions, and his book characters were often based on people who had been “persona non grata” in Soviet literature. Aleshkowsky’s sparkling humor, masterful juggling with profanity and expressions, ruthless irony, and criticism and self-criticism make his literary work direct and candid, close and beloved—and many of his songs are truly folk.

In the main character of the novella, Kangaroo—the former convict Tade—his long-time sworn enemy, the Chekist Kidalla, calls him and demands that he immediately come to Lubyanka. There, Tade learns that soon the authorities will be marking the anniversary of the First Case. The very First Case. Case Number One. And by that day there must not be a single Unsolved Particularly Important Case—none.

Therefore, Tade is offered a choice of ten unsolved cases, and one of them he must take upon himself. As a result, the choice falls on “the Case of the Brutal Rape and Murder of the Oldest Kangaroo in the Moscow Zoo on the night of July 14, 1789 to January 5, 1905.”