OF STURGEON AND CARRIE BRADSHAW

Based in “the fifth-largest city in the Siberian Federal District,” Dmitry Pogodin, 42, struggles with his TV glitching to Sex and the City with “incomprehensible subtitles—Japanese or Korean?” instead of his fishing show. He also just squabbled with his Chechen-War-conscript-turned-unemployed-engineer neighbor, who suggests they steal sturgeon to sell its prized roe. Dmitry, too, has had “years of idleness and the sting of unemployment,” having lost his newspaper columnist job “as the digital age dawned and paper faded.” He also still mourns the departure of his girlfriend Yuliana, the local caviar king’s daughter, back to Moscow. After seeing the out-of-reach cost of Moscow train travel on a billboard, Dmitry caves to his neighbor’s plan. Later he hooks up with visiting Muscovite Ekaterina, whose mental state merits a session with his “social security psychologist,” and he runs into Yuliana at the hospital, leading to a party full of surprises. Dmitry, however, is now inspired by Carrie Bradshaw—and finally starts writing his own novel: “Nothing jump-starts a creative awakening quite like an existential crisis and unsolicited life advice from a fictional New Yorker in designer heels,” is one of many pithy asides in this striking yet occasionally puzzling tale (whither the roe money?) fusing modern angst with Russia-specific pain and paranoia. Ekaterina is both burdened and blessed, for example, by an early affair with a political “VIP,” although “any assumption that this might subtly allude to Vladimir Putin is purely speculative and entirely at your own risk.” It is amusingly appropriate indeed in this strange world that an HBO series serves as muse for Dmitry.