23 Vovochka The True Confessions of Vladimir Putin's Best Friend and Confidant

Welcome to the Kremlin's phantasmagoric world, where a heady mixture of Orthodoxy, socialism, imperialism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and Mother Russia worship defines and distorts reality. Vovochka is the fictional story of "Vovochka Putin" and his intimate friend-a KGB agent with the same nickname. The two Vovochkas recruit informers in Berlin's gay bars, spy on East German dissidents, survive the trauma of the Soviet Union's collapse, fight American, Ukrainian, Jewish, and Estonian "fascists," and plot to restore Russia's power and glory. As their mindset assumes increasingly bizarre forms, "Vovochka Putin" experiences bouts of self-doubt that culminate in a weeklong cure in North Korea. Vovochka is a terrifyingly plausible account of a Russian president's evolution from a minor KGB agent in East Germany to the self-styled Savior and warmongering leader of a paranoid state.