Vyatka

It has previously said it was selling its four factories in Russia, in Tikhvin, Novgorod and Vyatka.

Belykh said contributions should go to a non-governmental fund called "Vyatka," according to seven people present.

Belykh launched his fund-raising drive on April 21 this year at the "Vyatka" banqueting hall.

Almost drowning in Russian placenames, foodstuffs, modes of transport and patronymics, the reader is as fully immersed here as Konstantin when he falls in the icy Vyatka river.

How vast the expanse, from the borders of Vyatka and Perm, where the mercury often freezes in winter, to the little town of Guryeff on the edge of Astrakhan, where small grapes ripen in the open air—grapes whose wine the Cossack trades in and drinks himself for coolness in summer and warmth in winter.