AS A MATTER OF FACT
The senior assistant to the prosecutor of the ussr, the Empire’s best detective and the author of thrilling mystery novels Lev Romanovich Sheinin ran the first investigation into the Umansky-Shakhurin case swiftly and without a fuss: the children were cremated, the surviving Umanskys flew to Mexico. The school principle Leonova, a few teachers and several classmates gave testimony about the culprits’ lack of discipline and teenage love. The case was closed, Shakhurin’s ashes were buried at Novodevichy, and Nina’s remains sat in storage in a ceramic urn for eighteen months at the Donsky crematorium. The seventh grade of school #175 was assigned to educational agricultural labor at the Irrigation Fields collective farm in Lyublino to pick vegetables and strawberries and
