cheap and dirty restaurant and narrowly escapes unhurt as it explodes. At "Dytiachyi Svit" he visits a man's room where he walks past a middle-aged man of Southern or possibly Roma origin whom he at first takes for a homosexual and nicknames "the baron". Soon afterwards he discovers that his wallet has disappeared from his backpack and realizes that only the baron could possibly steal it. The wallet contains some money, but, most importantly, a plane ticket to Kyiv which was very hard to obtain. Otto pursues the baron who has just disappeared behind one of the doors that leads to the storage rooms of "Dytiachyi Svit". The wild chase through a maze of basement corridors ends in a brief encounter between the two. The baron is victorious as Otto groans on the floor with an injured leg. The triumphant baron, however, falls through an open sewer hatch by oversight, thus leaving Otto alone in the basement. Otto realizes that the store must be closed by now and all the doors leading to the top must be locked. After some attempts he stumbles across a door that opens but when he steps inside he finds himself inside a tunnel of the Moscow subway. He is soon arrested by armed rat-catchers who promptly deliver him to the hands of KGB, still underground. Otto, himself formerly recruited by KGB, is locked in a cage but is unexpectedly presented to Halya who, as he learns, is another KGB spy. She helps him to get out, and after fooling security guards Otto enters a large hall where a banquet is taking place. This is a celebration of KGB and perhaps some other clandestine governmental organizations. He runs into his old acquaintance, the poet Yezhevikin who also seems to be a KGB agent. Some drinking ensues, and Yezhevikin procures a couple of prostitutes for himself and Otto. But the latter, under the influence of the mix of the alcoholic drinks consumed in the course of the day, is unable to contain himself and rushes to a bathroom where he throws up. In the bathroom he meets an old man who, after some admonition, assists Otto to attend a symposium of the dead. To get there, Otto must wear a mask and he chooses the mask of a clown. Once inside, he sees a number of masked figures who represent the powerful leaders from the Russian