While sublime on its own accord, it should be perhaps pursued in tandem w/ Remnick's Lenin's Tomb for purposes of context. One couldn't imagine a better example of poet's journalism. This shouldn't be confused with poetic journalism, of which Robert Musil was a licensed practitioner. No this a poet parsing reality as history hemorrhages. The eloquence of the event becomes an image: Rostapovich with a Kalashnikov and a girl named Boat lost to the whimsy of Time. ( )