Dmitri Zakharov

Srednyaya Edda

Moscow Banksy (Middle Edda) Political thriller. AST Publishers. Moscow 2019. 347 pages

Suddenly, new graffiti appears in Moscow week after week with a clock-face in the corner, the painted hand creeping towards 12. The grotesque works of an anonymous graffiti artist each represent a different member of the new bureaucratic nomenkla- tura - each of whom dies shortly afterwards. While the graffiti artist quickly becomes a new icon for the liberal protest movement, spin doctors close to the Kremlin are frantically trying to reveal his identity.

But the power elites are divided. Some arrest well-known opposition street artists and hire teams of ‚censors‘ who immediately paint over any new graffiti to prevent the image being distributed via social networks. When images of the cleaned-up graffiti are posted all over Moscow, other power clans interpret this as an attack from their competitors and start a violent search for the ringleader among the city administration, oil companies and oligarchs.

Meanwhile, some representatives of the corrupt power hierarchy are ready to pay huge sums for the next graffiti to depict one of their opponents. A large opposition rally in the center of Moscow turns out to be staged by people with a great deal at stake in the struggle for future power. When the demo turns into a bloody battle it serves as a welcome distraction from their political intrigue: the dismissal of the government, the flight of the speaker of parliament abroad and the long-prepared installation of a puppet candidate as deputy spokesman and formally number two in the state hierarchy. And number one, if anything happens to the president.

Everyone in Moscow is convinced that the twelfth graffiti will show the president. The city is paralysed when the presidential limousine’s escort stops unscheduled in the center of Moscow. Despite the utmost security precautions, it is clear to everyone - it‘s the president next.