Vasily Aksyonov. Moscow Kva-Kva

There's a high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment. Surrounded by honors, it houses the Soviet elite: Glika Novotkannaya—athlete, Komsomol member, beauty, and the "chief" Soviet virgin; the wartime poet Smelchakov; the famous pilot Moccinacchi; and many, many others. Even the author himself appears there, under the name Tak Takovsky.
Smelchakov loves Glyka, Moccinacchi loves Glyka, Yurka the jazz player loves Glyka, Stalin loves Smelchakov and... fears Tito. And the novel also features trained tigers, submarines, and a Minotaur! All of this transforms an ordinary historical chronicle into a wondrous phantasmagoria and makes you simultaneously believe and disbelieve Aksyonov.
Poetry and prose, parody and eyewitness accounts alternate in the novel with a playful freedom of fiction.
Amid debates about the ideal state, the ordinary lives of extraordinary people unfold. Half a century ago, such a combination was still possible...