KHOLMYANSKY
I found mentions of Kholmyansky in a few prematurely-written memoirs, whose authors did not have the assurance of publication provided by a golden supply of laureate medals in boxes with velvety, seemingly dusty insides; Kholmyansky was remembered as “the new hope of Russian drama,” that was not to be fulfilled. He left for the States and disappeared there. On the Internet I found the email holm@vogue.ru and a photo of a hung-over fellow in a knitted cap standing in front of an advertisement for laundry detergent. I wrote to the address and two minutes later received an auto-reply: the account does not exist. I spent the next two weeks sending out feelers, phone calls, sniffing the air — and suddenly Kholmyansky turned up in Moscow. He was panning for gold at television mines,
