FROM THE AUTHOR TO PUBLISHER

The book was commenced at the beginning of 80-ties years. It was not to describe the activities of any political leader or other men of social importance. Nor was it thought to present the annals of the contemporary epoch. It's just the story of an ordinary, educated, ironic and intelligent man, who doesn't want to be involved in policy-making, but accidentally found himself in the turmoil, caused by the collapse of the communist superpower. Nevertheless it was the fate of anyone, who lives on the ruins of the first and the largest socialist state. Apart from that, the book depicts the growth of criminality and mafia on the territories of the former USSR.
The book contains a few detective-like stories, self-sufficient but united by the same main character. Its first chapter concerns the end of Brezhnev's rule, and one of them -"Script"-, published in Russian in USA in October 1993, predicted arousal to power of an intelligence service agent (Vladimir Voinovich was the first to be a prophet).
The present publication may be interesting also for foreign readers, for it makes them understand what Russia has recently lost and achieved. And the most important thing, it helps you to make out- who profited by the collapse of the great country. The plot of the stories has an unpredictable character; originally the stories were thought to be film scripts (The author himself is one of pupils of Valentin Ezhov-the famous scriptwriter).
The complete version of the "Russian Chronicles" consists of two books including the following stories - "DRUNKARD", "BLACK MAGIC AND A LITTLE BIT FROM BORGES", "MIRE", "RESORT MAFIA", "UNCHOSEN ROADS", "666 OR THE KREMLIN GHOST'S SECRET" and "SCRIPT". The home reader is already familiar with the most of these stories. The fragments and the separate chapters of "The Russian Chronicles" were published in different years in the reduced versions by Lithuanian and Russian publishing houses, and also abroad in the US. In August 1996 "Echo of Moscow" radio station found "Resort Mafia" one of the best fiction publications.
The present publication is the most complete version of "The Russian Chronicles", which appears for the first time. The author had the courage to deal openly with "forbidden topics" in 80-ties years, and therefore his fiction publications were rarely welcomed by official critique. For example - in middle of 80-ties years the author was the first to attract attention to the dangerous ecologic situation in the Baltic Sea, caused by the toxic gases container-shells, which were flooded there by Nazis in the end of the Second World War.

G. GATSURA

The first book

RESORT MAFIA

Chapter 1. DRUNKARD. 1981.
Chapter 2. BLACK MAGIC and a little bit of Borges. 1987.
Chapter 3. "MIRE". 1989.
Chapter 4. RESORT MAFIA. 1990.
Chapter 5. UNCHOSEN ROADS. 1991.

The second book

THE KREMLIN GHOST'S SECRET

Chapter 6. SCRIPT. 1993.
Chapter 7. 666 or THE KREMLIN GHOST'S SECRET. 1996.

Genrih Gatsura