The Russians have a great sense of humour. They particularly relish the funny way in which life in reality differs from life in theory. Some of the greatest classics of Russian literature are comedies - such as Gogol's play The Government Inspector, in which a young con-man arrives in a provincial town and passes himself off as the much-feared inspector from the capital, with many painfully revealing comic results. This, together with Gogol's prose masterpiece Dead Souls, is as useful as a management consultant's manual for preparing to wheel and deal in Russia. Venality and corruption reign amidst a cast of unforgettable and quintessentially Russian characters.