"Based on true events, a thrilling marriage of reportage and lived experience, this book tears apart the fabric of Russian Soviet repression with biting humor and wry insight. Here are stories of citizens who find themselves in extraordinary and remarkable conditions. Iona, the philosopher and bon vivant; Merab, whose discourses resemble those of Socrates; Irakli, the learned classicist; Anderson, the librarian; the gourmands, Maximovich and Petrov; Kukharuk, the barber. These people and many more form the unofficial aristocracy, the intelligentsia, of the gulag, and with them, serving a sentence for political agitation, Levan Berdzenishvili, to his surprise, spends some of the most enjoyable and enlightening days of his life"--inside flap of front cover.