Blood and Caviar
In post-Soviet Russia, streets run on blood, loyalty is currency, and power is the most dangerous addiction
When you try to control everything -
everything controls you
THE STORY
In a city that devours its own, two men rise from the wreckage of a crumbling empire.
Blood and Caviar is a hardboiled descent into post-Soviet Russia—a world where the rules are gone, the guns are loaded, and love is the most dangerous currency. The year is 1995. The Soviet Union is dead, and from its smoldering corpse, a new Russia is being born—violent, lawless, and hungry.
Stepa never wanted a war. A shipyard welder with a good heart and a bad leg, he only wanted to feed his wife and keep the lights on. But when work vanishes and hunger creeps in, Stepa takes a job that pays in blood. One bullet at a time, he becomes something he never thought he’d be—a killer with a code, and a reputation to match. He tells himself it’s just survival. But the ghosts are piling up.
Across the country, Vlad wears a Brioni suit and a borrowed soul. As Moscow’s ambitious deputy mayor, he knows power is a game played in whispers and signed with favors. He dines with foreign investors, drinks with criminals, and sells pieces of his conscience to anyone with cash. But even Vlad has a line—until Hammer, the city’s most feared gangster, invites him into a partnership he can’t refuse.
Lurking in the spaces between them are the people they love—and the people they fail.
Nina, Stepa’s wife, is the quiet heartbeat of their home. A woman raised on sacrifice and survival, she watches the man she married disappear behind a mask of secrets and smoke. She can’t save him, but she never stops trying.
Varvara, Vlad’s mistress and aide, plays chess while the men around her brawl in the dirt. Brilliant, unreadable, and composed to a fault, she trades nothing she doesn’t choose to give. Varvara can calculate any outcome—except love.
And in the shadows, always watching, stands Hammer—a Georgian wolf in a tailored coat. Polite. Precise. Deadly. His empire is built not on trust, but fear, and he has no intention of giving up his throne. When he smiles, men disappear. When he speaks, the city listens.
From blood-soaked courtyards in St. Petersburg to the mirrored boardrooms of Moscow, Blood and Caviar follows five lives caught in the violent birth of a nation. It’s a story of loyalty and betrayal, greed and idealism, ambition and love—all set against the backdrop of one of the most brutal transformations in modern history.
In alleyways slick with blood and offices thick with smoke, every promise has a price. Every silence is a warning.
Trust is a myth. Survival is a skill.
And freedom?
That’s just a dream they sell at political rallies.
Meet the Characters
Blood and Caviar
Stepan
Volkov «STEPA»
A low-ranked enforcer in St. Petersburg’s underworld. A former soldier. A man of few words and fewer illusions.
Quiet, lethal, and unnervingly still, Stepa survives by being forgettable—until he isn’t. The scars he carries (knife wounds on his ribs, frostbite on his fingertips) matter less than the ones he hides: the ghost of his mother’s voice, the weight of a pistol he never wanted to use again.
He doesn’t crave power. He doesn’t even crave respect. In a world of wolves, Stepa moves like a shadow—until Nina becomes his only tether to something resembling light.
His loyalty is absolute, but his morality is malleable.
He kills without hesitation, but remembers every face.
He believes he’s damned, yet fights to protect what’s left of his soul.
From a passive tool of violence to a man who chooses brutality—not for ambition, but for love.
“Gazing into the darkness beyond, Stepa realized hell wasn’t fire and brimstone but the quiet erosion of everything he’d once believed in.“
Nina Volkova
A loving wife. A survivor. The last flicker of warmth in Stepa’s frozen world.
She doesn’t fight with guns or knives. She fights with the stubborn weight of her body curled around his at 3 AM, when the nightmares come. With calloused hands that keep sewing long after the shop closes, because extra rubles mean he takes one less job. With the way she still kisses his scars, even the fresh ones he won’t explain.
"You want to be a monster? Fine. But you don’t get to take me with you."
Not for power, but for ordinary decency—a hot meal, a clean shirt, a moment of tenderness in a city that rewards cruelty
Her greatest weapon: stubborn, unkillable love
The softest person in the room is also the strongest. Where others flinch, she endures—not because she’s fearless, but because fear is a luxury she can’t afford
Suddenly, his eyes left her. They didn’t just drift away; they fled like scared pigeons. A slight tremor jolted Nina’s heart. It rippled through her, unsettling everything inside.
“You’d tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”
Misha
Gorodkov «KOZAK»
Enforcer. Survivor. Loyal to a fault—unless you cross him. Kozak isn’t the sharpest man in the room—but he’s the last one standing when the smoke clears. Shaven head. Gold teeth. Hands built for breaking bones. On the surface, he’s every inch the street soldier—loud, crude, unapologetically violent. But there’s more behind the bravado.
Raised in a village that never gave him a future, Kozak learned early that fists spoke louder than dreams. Yet behind the jokes and swagger lives a man who knows loyalty better than most. He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t need to. If you’re on his side, he’ll bleed for you
To Stepa, he’s not just a partner. He’s the only one who never flinched when things got dark.
And when it comes time to hunt monsters—Kozak doesn’t hesitate.
He loads the gun.
His loyalty is absolute, but his morality is situational.
He jokes like a fool, but grieves like a soldier.
He knows he’s a weapon—and still chooses where to aim.
From a disposable foot soldier in someone else’s war to a man who chooses violence— not for power, but for the people who kept him human.
“My daddy used to say, ‘God’s work is like no other—one does it, and all appreciate it.’”
Vladislav
Zolotov «VLAD»
Deputy Mayor of Moscow. Chaos conductor. Architect of his own downfall
A man of tailored suits and surgical instincts, Vlad navigates Moscow’s halls of power like a scalpel—clean, controlled, and cutting deep. He believes in leverage over loyalty, favors over friendships, and survival at any cost. The system is a game he’s mastered: bribe the ministry, blackmail the Duma, and never forget to stock the President’s favorite cognac.
But beneath the confidence lies a man walking a razor’s edge—haunted by the cost of power, and unsure whether he’s still the one holding the knife.
Control—over the city, over his past, over the way his lover’s breath hitches when he smiles just before lying to her.
That childhood in a communal apartment, counting roaches instead of rubles.
The way his hands never fully lost the tremor from his first kill (a bureaucratic matter, nothing personal).
The sinking realization that every compromise has a compound interest rate.
He wields power like a scalpel, but the blood always seeps through his cuffs.
He knew he had just made a pact with the devil. Is this survival? he wondered. To barter away fragments of yourself until all that remains is an echo of the man you were?
Varvara Goncharova
A strategist who plays chess while others brawl in the dirt. Graceful under pressure and sharper than rumor, Varvara moves through Moscow’s power circles with a gaze that disarms and silence that commands. She calculates every risk, every angle—master of outcomes, mistress of control.
There’s only one variable she never accounted for: love.
Wears pearls at crime scenes because she knows appearances are armor.
Calls herself a realist, but still flinches when innocents get caught in the crossfire.
Her loyalty to Vlad isn’t blind—it’s a calculated investment.
She could’ve been a hero in another life. In this one, she settles for survival with her soul intact.
Maxim
Bakalashvili «HAMMER»
A Georgian wolf in a Brioni suit. Forged in the ruins of the USSR, Hammer rose from prison cells to palaces, becoming the quiet architect of Moscow’s underworld
He rules not with outbursts, but with precision. His smile disarms. His silence dismantles. Every gesture is deliberate. Every word lands like a verdict. They call him a vor v zakone—a thief within the law—but in truth, he is much more: judge, executioner, and myth made flesh.
Educated behind bars, fluent in violence, Hammer understands the new Russia better than its own leaders. He doesn’t chase power. He cultivates it, like a garden of fear. And when you hear his name in a whisper, it’s already too late.
He’s the kind of man who sends flowers to your funeral—and remembers your widow’s favorite wine.
“Do you know why I still smoke these?” Hammer said, cracking the sunroof to let the smoke curl into the cold night air.
“I don’t ever want to forget the taste of real life.
You see… when I smoke these, I can smell the shit I was born into. I can taste the sweat I shed to crawl out of it, and I remember everything I had to do to get to this point.”
ABOUT AUTHOR
Born in Moscow and educated at Corvinus University in Budapest, Nikolay Ignatiev began his professional journey in the United States and Canada, where he established himself as a leader in IT solutions and business innovation.
Beyond his work in technology, Nikolay channels his diverse life experiences into storytelling. His writing reflects a deep understanding of international cultures, global business dynamics, and the intricacies of human nature—shaped by decades of travel and professional exploration across continents.
With firsthand knowledge of post-Soviet Russia, Nikolay immerses readers in the gritty realities of a nation in turmoil. His raw, atmospheric style weaves together elements of crime, suspense, and deep emotional vulnerability. The narrative unfolds in dark alleyways, smoky back rooms, and within the fragile lives of characters struggling to survive in a country teetering on the edge of chaos.
Driven by vivid imagery and tightly wound tension, his work invites readers to witness both the brutality and humanity of a world often hidden from view. It is not only the high-stakes action that grips—it is the small, intimate moments that reveal his characters’ deepest truths.
With a deft blend of psychological depth and visceral storytelling, Nikolay Ignatiev delivers fiction that captivates as much for its heart as for its edge—offering an unforgettable exploration of loyalty, love, and ambition in a landscape defined by its shadows.
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