illustration ©Simon and Schuster (used with permission) HOW TO SURVIVE THE RIGORS OF MORTIS Death's sting is readily found at the local funeral parlour in Russia   One of the USSR's most popular writers of the post-revolutionary period was Mikhail Zoshchenko. His short stories depicted the absurdity of the new order, as it attempted to reshape the stubbornly recalcitrant masses into at least a semblance of Homo Sovieticus. But nothing that Zoshchenko could have invented compares with the reality of Russian life during the times of Perestroika, as shown by some of the forays concerning one of the final unmentionables of Russian life - the Russian way of dying. It appears that the Biblical lament, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" has more than rhetorical significance for those Russian citizens who are improvident enough to succumb to this most ancient human denouement. If they happen to die during public holidays - which any intending deceased must be strictly advised against - they could be confronted with an absence of a suitable coffin, since government outlets which supply such consumer items are naturally closed. The deceased and, perhaps even more palpably so, his or her surviving relatives and friends are thus thrown on to the resources of the yet incumbent private funeral industry. Having found a coffin of suitable size - at, say, five times the usual price - they may find that the grave diggers, having done their job with amazing speed and alacrity, were nonetheless' prevented from completing it since a huge boulder would be found to prevent the entry of the coffin into its final resting place. Currently, the going price for removing the boulder (which appears to migrate mysteriously between the graves) is 100 roubles per grave (about two weeks' average wages). Of course, only the most steel-hearted would consider bargaining over the obviously exorbitant price at such a sensitive moment. Such vagaries, as well as the logistic and economic considerations, may sway the more budget- and efficiency-minded among the population to prefer the ritual of cremation to the act of burial. However, the simplicity of this solution often proves to be deceptive. The modern Russian crematoriums are, of course, State-run institutions with their own rules, procedures and customs which take little or no account of the psychological stress that their potential customers may be under. There are production quotas to be thought of (a reliable eye-witness reported that at least one director of a crematorium had a bright banner over her desk proclaiming her institution to be a winner of the "socialist competition"); questions of throughput considered; the inevitable shortages of raw materials and supplies attended to (in a Ukrainian crematorium the following sign was observed: "Due to shortage of urns, remnants will henceforth be issued in plastic bags"). A solemn-looking official with an arm band and a lapel pin depicting the flame which is about to consume the earthly remains of your relative or friend would briskly usher you through the final rites, reading haltingly from two pieces of paper, one containing the "canned" version of the ritual and the other the actual data of the deceased which are inserted as required. An inconspicuously-placed organ may burst forthwith a resonant dirge at an appropriate moment, stunning the hushed audience out of their fatalistic reverie on the eternal questions of life and death. Or a sporadic firing may ensue outside the neighbouring reception hall where a high-ranking military official is being sent off with full military honours. But even these ordeals come only at the end of a long and torturous process that only a few survive unscathed. First of all, at the morgue, to which one comes to claim the body of the deceased, one is confronted with a forbidding sign: "Deceased are issued only upon the presentation of a death certificate and a current passport with valid residence permit." Having satisfied the official of the morgue as to your, and your deceased, bona fides (we will not even consider here a case where the deceased had, for example, absentmindedly allowed his residency permit to lapse before absconding to the nether world, leaving his relatives in a most unconformable lurch), you will join the queue of the bright yellow hearses (with neatly painted signs "Smoking prohibited" inside their cavernous holds) and proceed to the nearest crematorium. Some people have been known to faint upon approaching these austere-looking structures with tall chimneys belching plumes of dark smoke. However, if you are still conscious, you may join the queue which on any given day may comprise dozens or hundreds of individuals awaiting their turn. Needless to say, there are no refreshments provided, aside from a rubber hose issuing a cloudy stream of tepid water. But you may be cheered by a sign proclaiming: "The convenience and comfort of preserving your urn at the enclosed sanctuary, available upon application." Should you decide to take the urn with you for less convenient but more private storage, you may have to offer a small donation to the crematorium's demonstrably underpaid staff who will then speedily repair to locate your particular urn (or so you hope). It is possibly deeply symbolic that one of the greatest Russian poets of this century, Osip Mandelstam, has no grave to which his many admirers at home and abroad can flock. Having been imprisoned on Stalin's orders, he was either killed by criminals in the camps as he, in accordance with one version, tried to recite the verses of Petrarch to them, or thrown overboard from one of the many prisoner transport vessels which plied the deadly route to Kolyma. In one of the most famous recent Russian novels, Valentin Rasputin's Farewell to Matyora, there is a scene where villagers bodily defend their churchyard from desecration by the officials eager to clear up the "debris" that would float up once the site was flooded by a new hydro-electric project. It is only now that the damage done to the Russian psyche through the abuse bestowed upon private citizens by the mighty, if stupid, state is being fully recognised. It may be too late a recognition for the living. It is certainly too late for the dead. In Putin's Russia dying and getting buried is just as precarious a business as during Perestroika times. Except that if you have a lot of money you may be able to afford to have your body embalmed by one of the scientists who was  looking after Lenin's embalmed body. If you are poor you will be buried in a pauper's grave in Moscow or just dumped into a communal unidentified grave in the provinces.