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The Little Golden CalfThe Little Golden Calf (Золотой Теленок) (1931) is a famous satirical novel by Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov q.v. Its hero, Ostap Bender appeared in the previous novel of the authors, The Twelve Chairs. The title alludes to the "Golden calf" expression. Plot Ostap Bender is alive again, presumably having somehow survived assassination in the previous book. This time he hears a story about "a Soviet millionaire" Alexandr Koreiko. Koreiko has made millions (a truly enormous sum, with an average contemporary salary being in the neigborhood of 100 rubles) by various, more or less legal businesses, taking full advantage of the widespread corruption in the New Economic Policy period. Living in a small town by the Black Sea and working as an accountant for a government office in charge of economic management (it actually does not manage anything but is rather involved in years-long bureaucratic battles against another such government office), Koreiko hoards his ill-gotten gains in a large stash of money in a suitcase, waiting for the fall of the Soviet government so that he can make use of it. Together with two petty criminal associates and a naive and innocent car driver, Bender finds him out and proceeds to collect more information about Koreiko's business activities. Koreiko tries to flee, but Bender eventually catches up with him, in Central Asia in Turkestan (Uzbekistan), and blackmails him for a million rubles. Suddenly rich, Bender buys a large quantity of jewels and gold and tries to cross the Romanian border, only to be robbed by the Romanian security guards. Koreiko finds another job as an accountant, hides the remainder of his cash, and continues to wait for the fall of the Soviets.
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