Hello. And pleasure to meet you. My name Yevgeny.

Yevgeny, yes. But my friends they call me Zhenya.

Now, where was I born? In Vitebsk.

You want know about Vitebsk?

OK. Start thinking about famous painter, Marc Chagall. Now you see Vitebsk: it got cows flying over roofs of houses playing violins and green sheep smiling very large. Alright, only joking.

In the looking glass world of the old Soviet reality, the future is certain. But the past is unpredictable and the truth a negotiable commodity.

Into this changeable environment comes young Zhenya Gorevich, struggling to embrace a supposed Communist utopia. When his mother confesses the unlikely secret of his parentage, he determines to escape Russia and find his long-lost father. His impossible quest will take him from provincial Vitebsk to Moscow and beyond, as he tries desperately to find a way to get to swinging London and reclaim his noble birthright.

Culminating with the 1966 World Cup in England, Martin Sixsmith has written a playful, yet strikingly poignant story of one man’s life journey combining the classic tradition of Russian satire with his own wry humour.