Letting a red rooster go and catching a goldfish is only a small part of what the guardsman, the hope and support of the Russian state, must do in a day. Word and deed is his motto, loyalty to superiors is his principle, doublethink is his morality, violence is his tool. The story of Vladimir Sorokin 'The Day of the Oprichnik' is both a farce action that can make you laugh to the point of colic, and a disappointing prediction. Oprichnik feels great in Sorokin's Moscow of the near future - because he is irreplaceable. The Day of the Oprichnik, first published in 2006, has been translated into twenty languages.