Born in 1934 in the Urals town of Chapaevsk, Ivan Petrov succumbed early to the lure of the bottle. For forty years he stumbled, staggered and rampaged all over the vast Soviet empire. Homeless (an illegal condition in the communist utopia), in and out of prison camps, almost always drunk (though he did spend a year drying out as a bee-keeper in Central Asia) and with a gift for hilariously sending up the tragic absurdities of Soviet life, Ivan was a real-life Svejk. SMASHED IN THE USSR is his eye-opening, frequently eye-watering story, and a unique perspective on Soviet life.