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Moscow to the End of the Line

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Moskva-Petushki, which is translated in English as Moscow to the End of the Line, is Venedikt Erofeev's greatest work, one drunken man's (Venichka's) journey on the Moskovskaia-Gor'skovskaia train line to visit his lover and child in the Petushki. En route, Venichka talks with other travelers in dialogue and he also speaks in monologue about various themes such as drinking, Russian literature and philosophy and the sad, poetic soul of the Russian peasant. As the novel progresses, it becomes increasingly dark, disoriented, hallucinogenic and surrealistic, in proportion to the narrator's alcohol intake.

Moscow to the End of the Line was written in 1970. During this time, Erofeev, himself, was traveling around the Soviet Union working as a telephone cable layer. Erofeev's friends have said the author made the story up in order to entertain his fellow workers as they traveled, and that many of these fellow workers were later incorporated as characters in the book.

The text of the novel began to be circulated in samizdat within the Soviet Union and then it was smuggled to the West where it was eventually translated into English. The official Russian language publication took place in Paris in 1977. With glasnost, Moscow to the End of the Line was able to be circulated freely within Russia, but, rather than stick to the original form, the novel was abridged in the government pamphlet Sobriety and Culture, ostensibly as a campaign against alcoholism. Finally, in 1995, it was officially published, together with all the formerly edited obscenities and without censorship.

Although he is an alcoholic, Venichka never comes across to the reader as despicable. Venichka is not a man who drinks because he wants to drink; he drinks to escape a reality that has gone beyond miserable and veered off into the absurd. He is not a stupid or pitiable character, but rather one who has no outlet for his considerable intelligence. That Venichka is very educated is obvious; he makes intelligent and well-read references to both literature and religion. However, in the restrictive Soviet Union of his time, there was no outlet for this kind of intelligent creativity; Venichka is forced to channel his creative instincts into bizarre drink recipes and visions of sphinxes, angels and devils.

Although many will see Moscow to the End of the Line as satire, it really is not. Instead, it is Erofeev's anguished and heartfelt cry, a cry that demanded change. Venichka is not a hopeless character, however, the situation in which he is living is a hopeless one.

A semi-autobiographical work, Moscow to the End of the Line was never meant as a denunciation of alcoholism but rather an explanation of why alcohol was so tragically necessary in the day-to-day life of citizens living under Soviet rule.

Moscow to the End of the Line is a highly entertaining book and it is a book that is very important in understanding the Russia of both yesterday and today as well. This book is really a classic of world literature and it is a shame that more people do not read Moscow to the End of the Line rather than relying on the standard "bestseller." This book deserves to be more widely read and appreciated.

This is a sublime little tale, saturated with humor and pathos. Erofeev (both author & narrator have the same name, heightening the autobiographical tone of the book) is the Dante of the Moscow commuter rail. He stumbles from bar to bar and a purgatory of the 'thirteen varieties of Soviet vodka.' Then, it's onto the train, which takes him some thirty stops from Kursk station and 'The Hammer and Sickle' to the 'end of the line' at Petushki (which I'm told means 'flowers' in Russian) where he is to meet his Beatrice.

But (unlike Dante) Erofeev never seems to arrive. As he downs more and more hooch, the story becomes progressively more blotched and incoherent. It culminates in the Passion of Erofeev, in which our poor hero is driven up against the wall of the Kremlin (though whether its the Kremlin in Moscow or Petushki is unclear) and left screwed.

This is a story about mercy. Read it. It is easily one of the best books I've read in the past year. Then pass the word along, because it deserves to be better known.

This book was recommended to me by a friend who apparently read it my accident, and loved it. Now I've gotten a hold of it and read it too, and I'm disappointed only because there isn't more of it. I'd like to have three hundred or so more pages of the same stuff. A great mixture of humour and poetry, terribly funny and tragic at the same time. Highly recommended - I've read quite a lot of Russian literature, and I was surprised to find that there are such gems out there that I've never even heard of. Get it, read it, you won't regret it. At least not if there's some sense in you.

I am Russian, and I am not so fluent in English, so beg you pardon. I highly recommend this book, together with Bulgakov this is the most lovely and admired writer in my country.

Ah, this book...a cherished one for me, pilfered from a friend who's father studied under Nabokov (but later given back). I read this under the serious spell of Knut Hamsun and this book is similiar to "Hunger" but perhaps more humorous. It's about an unemployed, alcholic cable fitter who is fired for charting diagrams of his comrades "idleness" correalated with the days they get drunk. Thrust into a serious drinking binge he is stuck on a train trying to reach Moscow and in between we have flashbacks of him trying to buy vodka before restaurants and stores have opened, giving us recipes of cocktails made out of aftershave ("Aunt Clara's Kiss) that brings on hallucinations and incredible verbal pyrotechnics full of literary ramblings and political rumblings. The whole time his hallucinations are marked by a pair of overcoated angels egging him on or chastising his behavior as he mixes up his route on the train forgetting to disembark and actually heading away from his destination. He finally does reach Moscow and the novel closes like a hand over a movie lens as abruptly as it started. It is a startling book, not only the best of the samizdat novels (works distributed like fanzines secretly during the communist regime) but by far the most dazzling comic novels ever written about desperation and alcholism. It is an incredible book and after reading it you will never have patience for another Bukowski book again.

This is clearly one of the masterpieces of twentieth century Russian letters. Sometimes I cheer myself up just by reading the passage where the angels appear to Benny (the narrator) and far from giving him a glimpse of divine revelation, point out that there were certainly some bottles of red wine at the station buffet.

Erofeev was a gentle, witty drunk, immensely shrewd - he made a hilarious interview subject in a BBCTV documentary in the late eighties, retailing recipes for bizarre cocktails of vodka and air-freshener, despite the fact that cancer had stripped out his vocal cords. I don't know of any other works by him and wish I did. Legend had it he was working on a history of the Jews. Any tips?

Moscow Circles (J.R Dorrel) is a better translation than Moscow to the End of the Line (H. William Tjalsma). It's more faithful to the original. I've read them both and prefer it by quite a bit. Moscow Circles is a little hard to find though. Moscow to the End of the Line is still a great read if thats all you can find. This is probably my favorite Russian book!

There is little to add to the rave reviews that precede me - the novel is a monologue of an alcholic supervisor of a group of men who lay cable ... or at least are employed to lay cable. He is fired for his intellectual curiosity, especially, charting productivity against alcohol consumption. While the novel starts as a realistic narrative, one is given early hints of what is to come e.g. angels guiding the narrator to possible sources of alcohol. As the narrator drinks more, the tale moves from realistic to absurd to surrealistic - abruptly turning realistic at the conclusion. It is as the story turns unrealistic that the reader is given real insight into the Russian soul - literary culture, musical culture, religion. The writing is exquisite - a mixture of poetic and coarse that reflects perfectly the attitude of the speaker and communicates perfectly to the reader.

Consider this a must read.

Venedikt Erofeev wrote--not terribly prolifically--for most of his life, but received no official recognition from the Soviet establishment. And though his works circulated underground--in the samizdat circles--he did not fit the mold of the Soviet dissident writer a la Solzhenitsyn, at least in the sense that American Cold Warriors approved. His works, most often focusing on brief episodes in the lives of inveterate drinkers, dealt not with Soviet heroes or even bourgeois villains, but with those left totally disillusioned with a society which had officially lost its soul. His characters were drunks, but drunks who in their suffering knew grace, not Western anti-heroes but Brezhnevian updates of Russian holy fools. "Moskva-Petushki"--translated as "Moscow to the End of the Line"--is generally considered his masterpiece.

The novel consists basically of a long from Moscow to Petushki, where the narrator, an ex-construction foreman who shares the name of the author, plans on meeting his girlfriend and child. "Venichka," as the character is affectionately called, begins the novel waking from a drunken sleep to find more alcohol, and for the rest of the novel gets drunker. His confusions and hallucinations are the true subject of the book. In Erofeev--and he comments on this subject in the book itself--the effect of alcohol is not physical, but spiritual.

Erofeev's novel functions on a number of levels. His humor, as a reviewer notes on the back cover, is the equal of Gogol's. For this reason alone, he merits attention. But "Moscow to the End of the Line" offers more than humor. It illuminates a Russia the Soviet regime tried to cover, and a Russia that Western observers, seeing in the February Revolution a democratic impulse in the Western sense stolen from history by the Bolsheviks, missed as well: the spiritual Russia, Russkaia Dusha, the "Russian Soul." Russians surely needed to hear about Western civil liberties during the Brezhnev era; just as surely, the West, perhaps not irretreivably secular, might as well hear Erofeev.

As one of my professors noted, this book is about what, how much and in what order you can drink. It describes with a minute precision the drinking traditions of the Soviet times. You will find an immense list of alcoholic and semi-alcoholic beverages sold, made and consumed by the male population in the state of constant desperation of life. Halfway into the book, Erofeev provides the reader with a peculiar set of cocktail recipes (for example "Komsomol Girl's Tear) that include such bizzare ingredients as nail polish, gasoline, shoe polish, cologne, and others. The amazing and the sad part is that Soviets did drink such poisonous mixtures.
In between Erofeev's wanderings on the subject of drinking, you will find some very deep philosophical thoughts, a hopeless story of the Soviet reality, and a vague description of his love towards the "red-haired bitch."
Ironically, Erofeev was diagnosed with the throat cancer. While he was still operable, several European medical institutions offered their expertise and help in saving Venedikt's life. As you could've guessed, the Soviet government did not allow him the visa to leave the country. So, Erofeev tragically died.

Called a poem, Moscow to the End of the Line (Moscow to Petushki in Russian) is a lyrical cry of one soul's desperation.