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Andrey Kurkov: Сердце не мясо (The Stolen Heart)
The original Russian title translates as The Heart is Not Meat which may be a more apposite title, not least because one of the characters makes this claim.
Our hero is Samson Kolechko, whom we will meet in other Kurkov books. He is a young police investigator in the early 1920s in Kyiv. He is mssing an ear, chopped off by a fierce Cossack. He keeps the ear, together with two bullets that almost killed him in a sweet box which freaks out his girlfriend when she is looking for sweets. She is Nadezhda. She works in the Statistical Bureau and he is devoted to her. His colleague is Kholodny, a former priest, with whom he gets alone and his boss is Nayden with whom he does not particularly get on well with.
He and Kholodny (it means cold) are walking to get an after-work beer when someone shouts Get that bitch! Vanya, fire! followed by several rifle shots. The now dying bitch is a dog who seems to have stolen some meat. Our heroes continue on their way, discussing Judas Iscariot.
They will soon be joined by Abyazov, a Chekist. who is ,more experienced and more ruthless than them. We start with a crime. Our heroes are sent to investigate a shed as it appears blood is seeping out from underneath it and it is suspected that they might find a dead body. Further investigation does not reveal any human body, dead or alive: It seems that the blood was from a slaughtered pig. What neither the two police officers nor the owner of the shed realise is that selling meat is, since quite recently, a crime: the illicit slaughter of livestock and violation of the decree of the ExProFooCom banning private trade in meat Abyazov informs them. They are now sent off on something of a wild goose chase, tracking down private meat selllers. Kurkov mocks the whole business. Our heroes are somewhat inept, Nayden wants a quick result, the offenders are either unaware that it is a crime or are very wily and, of course both we and they are aware that this is hardly the crime of the century. Moreover there seem to be loopholes in the law.
Meanwhile the government is having problems with the railway workers who seem to be or, at least consider themselves to be a law unto themselves. Indeed one of the ways Kurkov mocks the Soviet system is that various parts of the system seem to in opposition to or even, as in the case of the railway workers, in open warfare with other parts of the system.
Samson soon gets distracted from the meat crime. Firstly Nadezhda disappears. He searches everywhere for her, to no avail. Then he recalls that her statistical unit were checking up on the railway workers and wonders if she might be there. He investigates which turns out to be a big mistake. When he does eventually get out – without his gun – he informs Abyazov who organises an armed attack. Another big mistake, at least as far as Abyazov’s career goes.
Further distractions include a runaway horse and carriage which smash into a tram. causing it to overturn and a series of petty thefts in the police office.
Our two heroes are sent on an interrogation course where we see a rare case of someone being encouraged to take up smoking, Samson is a non-smoker but has to learn to smoke so that he can blow smoke in a suspect’s face.
They continue their investigation into the illegal sale of meat which seems to drag on and on. Part of the problem is that they get sidetracked by a variety of issues, ranging from a Chinese soldier being arrested by the Cheka to a slew of petty thefts in their office, as well, of course the tram accident. Samson, in particular, is not entirely committed to the cause, considering it not only a very minor crime but also one where it is clear that the majority of the offenders were not aware they were breaking the law. Moreover, as the Russian title tells us, for some of them the heart and other offal should not be considered as meat. Samson tries to help some of them, even as his boss and the resurrected Abyazov push for harsh punishments.
We are also following Samson’s private life. If he is to marry in a church, he has to have an anti-wedding, in an anti-chapel, presided over by an anti-priest . His life is made more complicated when the doctor who treated his ear wants to hide in his house as he may be called up into the army. Indeed Samson and the others break the law themselves on several occasions.
As we see with his proposed wedding, religion is also an issue. As mentioned, Kholodny is a former priest and still wears a large cross (he claims it protecst him from bullets and knives). Samson asks his doctor tenant if he still believes in God, I did, until 1917.” The doctor nodded. “Since then, I’ve had my doubts. Clearly religion is not completely dead.
This an excellent story as we we would expect from Kurkov. We have a ckever and complicated plot, told as always with Kurkov, with much humour and mockery of the Soviet system and its supporters, with lots of sidetracks and tangents, We get an excellent portrait of Kyiv a hundred years ago. And of course we get a very sympathetic portrait of the ordinary people of Kyiv, who are all struggling to survive under not always easy conditions.
Publishing history
First published in 2021 by Folio
First published in English in 2025 by Harper Collins
Translated by Boris Dralyuk