In 1993 tragic turbulence takes over Ukraine in the post communist spin off As if in somnambulism Soviet war veterans and upstart businessmen listen to an American preacher of whose type there were plenty at the time in the post Soviet territory In Kharkiv the young communist headquarters is now an advertising agency and a youth radio station brings Western music with Depeche Mode in the lead into homes of ordinary people In the middle of this craze three friends an anti Semitic Jew Dogg Pavlov an unfortunate entrepreneur Vasia the Communist and the narrator Zhadan nineteen years of age and unemployed seek to find their old pal Sasha Carburetor to tell him that his step father shot himself dead Characters confront elements of their reality and tainted with traumatic survival fever embark on a sad dramatic and a bit grotesque adventure