In this fractured fairy tale for adults, two thieves--Vaska and Vanya--steal the czar's treasure from the Bank of St. Petersburg by opening the roof with a sardine can opener taken from the nest of a griffin. And this is only the start of their misadventures: Vaska is temporarily beheaded, the Red Guards are hot on their heels, and copious amounts of Vodka are consumed by all. Set in Soviet Russia, Vaska Easoff was derived from a mythical story passed among prisoners of the Communist labor camps.

As rain brings a flourish of frogs, the bearded, Orthodox patriarch of
a Budapest furniture manifacturing family, predicts, in the aftermath of
World War I. an ominous future for Hungary. He and his family live in
tasteful, spacious comfort above their classy showroom, where they
sell fine quality reproduction of period pieces. The brief Red terror
that follows the Great War, a foreshadowing of what will befall
Hungary in the wake of World War II, finds the store stripped of
its stock, which is returned once the communist threat subsides.