For my main series “Totalitarian football” I’m going to be managing the made up club CSKA Aransk in the made up post-Soviet totalitarian Communist nation of Bordavia. I have covered the creation process in a series called “Creating Club and Country”:
The idea from the beginning was for CSKA Aransk to get invited into the Russian league system, where most of the adventure would take place. I was going to create a Bordavian league, but only the top tier, as a backdrop. However, after a literal hurricane of interest in getting involved in this adventure the idea took a turn into something completely different. Over 60 people have reached out and contributed with ideas for towns and clubs and stories. Bordavia has turned into a mystic but rather grim nation, full of quirks, stories and lore. I fell in love with both the commitment shown by you and the nation of Bordavia, which has lead to the creation process of an entire Bordavian database. This has been a real team effort, which I have enjoyed massively, but it has also meant that I haven’t had much time to write blog posts or record YT videos. Therefore I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone, by sharing stories from the nation of Bordavia up until the db release around Christmas.
If you want to read the other stories you can find them here.
Today’s story comes from MarcusWedauFM who blogs at From The Cheap Seats. This last story finally lets us know how all the other stories managed to slip out from the isolated nation of Bordavia!
The end – at least for Oleg Khintsagov
On the morning of December 1, 2020, Oleg Vladimirovich Khintsagov, a slightly built, 49-year-old auto mechanic, got out of bed in the ramshackle house he shared with relatives in Vsevogorsk, a mining town less than 50 km inside Bordavia’s border with ex-Soviet Russia. It was still early, the first light shimmering off the fresh snow atop the peaks of the nearby Vsevogorsk mountain. For 20 years, Khintsagov had eked out a living, like so many Bordavians after the Soviet collapse, mostly as a small-time trader. Cheap Russian chandeliers, dried fish, sausages, Khintsagov would peddle just about anything he could get his hands on, and the returns were usually meager. But now his luck looked about to change. In fact, if everything went according to plan, he would end the day very much richer. No truck would be needed to ferry today’s goods. The letters in his tattered leather coat were tucked into a plastic bag; the type a day laborer might use to wrap a sandwich.
Khintsagov headed out of Vsevogorsk toward the Russian-Bordavia border in an old, white Kolomna four-wheel drive with three men from Vybozniki who had driven over to pick him up. One was Revaz Kurkumuli, another petty smuggler. The other two had engaged in low-end smuggling with Khintsagov in the past; Maxim Sudjashvili, who painted and peddled cheap reproductions of Russian masters and Vazha Chikhashvili, a corrupt, low-ranking Bordavian Border Security official. Khintsagov had bragged to his companions for months that what he had in his pocket was just a sample and that he could get at least a few coins for each letter smuggled out. He picked up letters from anyone who wanted them sent out to relatives, friends or associates outside Bordavia The men were traveling to the Bordavian border town of Vybozniki, to meet a Russian who had earlier told Khintsagov’s three Bordavian associates that he represented a person from “outside Russia” that was interested in getting hold of documents smuggled out of Bordavia. There was, of course, the problem of the Russian-Bordavian customs post inside Vybozniki. But one of Khintsagov’s relatives worked there in the postal section in Vybozniki, and he saw to it that things went smoothly. When Khintsagov and his group approached Vybozniki, they veered off to the hardscrabble Mukhiani district on the outskirts and then parked a block away from their destination, a run-down, nine-story Soviet-style apartment block. There, in a squalid two-and-a-half-room apartment on the seventh floor, Khintsagov and Sudjashvili waited for their Russian buyer. Unfortunately for Khintsagov, however, the “buyer” was a Russian-speaking operative of Bordavia’s Border Security force, which had gotten wind of his plans and set up a sting. Leaving to take a phone call, Khintsagov avoided the messy deaths that his companions experienced, the security forces breaking into their room and cutting them down where they stood with bursts of automatic gunfire. Hearing the noise and possessing the cunning of a cornered animal, Khintsagov broke into the crowd outside and got back to the vehicle in relative anonymity.
Trying to get the rusting 4×4 started, proved harder than it should have done and he let out a scream of frustration as he could see the BBS operatives exiting the building. Finally, the engine spluttered into life and Khintsagov laughed in equal parts terror and joy as he shoved it into gear and reversed out of the tenement, sending a spray of dirt and small rocks out as he shot backwards. Travelling further into the city, he started to panic that the Security forces knew the vehicle they were travelling in. Or they knew him. Maybe his companions talked! At that, he pulled over to the side of the road, got out, and threw the keys into a municipal rubbish bin. He then turned up the collar on his greatcoat and started for the dock. Keeping to the side-streets, Khintsagov made it there in good time and without any fuss. Still worried about his fate, he stepped out into the road, oblivious and nearly ended his life as a traffic statistic, as a truck honked it’s horn, startling him. It passed him by mere inches, leaving Khintsagov stunned and his heart beating like a bass drum. The incident caught the eye of a BBS patrol, their eyes narrowing as they tried to make out who had just cheated death by inches. Khintsagov felt every molecule in his body try to scream as he fought to keep control of his body. Walking purposefully, he stormed towards the mailbox drop he used. The patrol, curious now, turned and followed him, checking his description by radio.
Khintsagov, hearing the faint squawks of the radio, increased his pace and barrelled towards the postbox outside the Customs building, praying the bustling street would cover him just long enough. Witnesses swear that was where an old lady was standing examining an envelope, Khintsagov had removed a book sized package from his jacket and the exchange went like this
“Pardon me”
“Ah! I’m sorry kotchik… I was in my own little world. Is it important?”
“Very.”
Khintsagov dropped the package into the mailbox and closed up the lid.
“I hope it gets where it’s supposed to go!” said the Old Lady
“Me too.”
“These days you never know.”
“No, you never do. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
The hail of bullets that killed both the old lady and Khintsagov moments later must have seemed like blessed relief for him. As they both lay dying, the post box was emptied from inside the building.
This was the sixteenth and final “Tale from Bordavia” and I’d like to thank MarcusWedauFM for his great contribution. I hope you enjoyed these little stories and that they sparked an interest large enough to follow my main series “Totalitarian Football” and maybe even try the database for yourself!?
I stream my “Building Bordavia” creation process on Twitch on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Come hang out and say hi!
I also upload episodes about the creation process to my YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss any content!
MikaelinhoFM 