About the book: 1966 / The stories "The Gentleman from Istanbul" and "The Mayor" included in this book are very close to each other both in material and in theme. The first of them tells about those days when the “black baron” - Wrangel - still dominated in Crimea. The second action dates back to 1918, when General Krasnov and his henchmen, like the “mayor” Colonel Grekov, ruled in Rostov-on-Don, robbing its population and committing arbitrariness and violence with impunity. Both stories are written in an emphatically grotesque way, with sharply comedic situations and episodes. The peculiar manner helps the writer to reproduce with particular revealing power the crimes of the White Guards both on the Don in 1918 and in the Crimea in 1920. Many of the characters depicted in "The Gentleman from Istanbul" and "The Mayor" are real people. This applies to General Krasnov, and to military foreman Ikaev, and to Colonel Grekov, and to generals Shatilov and Artifeksov, and to counterintelligence officer Count Tatishchev. The former tsarist Cossack officer himself, Hadji-Murat Muguev, knew well the environment he described in the stories.