ABSTRACT
Endless tales are told of orgies at Alexandrov, of the tasting of new species of vice by a half-mad Ivan. But perhaps the truth is that a great actor was playing an extraordinary part. Sometimes he appeared in the raids of the black-garbed crew, as when they descended on the foreign village in Moscow - the German quarter - in the middle of a winter night, and looted all the houses, stripping the inmates and driving them out naked into the icy cold, while collecting their goods.7
