A Gentleman in Moscow: Book 5, An Announcement Summary & Analysis

On June 11, the evening of the event, the Count stands in suite 417 and ensures that all of the place settings are in order. Though the Count was excused from this duty, Andrey has been experiencing terrible tremors in his hand the day prior and so he asked the Count to assume his duties. Andrey told the Bishop that he already contacted comrade Propp, the liaison at the Kremlin, to confirm.

Comrade Propp had been relieved to hear that the Count was overseeing the dinner. While he did not know the Count’s background as a former noble, he did know the Count to be a wonderful headwaiter. The two men had gone over the details of the dinner that morning. The only thing Propp did not give the Count was a seating arrangement, but Propp told him not to worry: there was no seating arrangement.

The Count was pleased to hear there was no seating arrangement, because the tables were arranged in a “U” shape, and to invite forty-six leaders to navigate seating without guidance would likely lead to some disorder. But in reality, the Communist party is what the narrator describes as “the hierarchy of all hierarchies,” and so when the guests arrived, the forty-six attendees would know exactly their place at the table. The seating arrangement would tell an observer all they needed to know about how Russia would be governed for the next twenty years.

The doors are opened precisely at 9:00 P.M. The two center seats of the table are taken by Premier Malenkov and General Secretary Khrushchev. Over the next two hours, the men eat, drink, and raise toasts. Meanwhile, the Count, attentive as ever, overhears every private exchange made at the dinner.

At 10:50, at the end of the dinner, Khrushchev makes a speech. He says that the Metropol is no stranger to historic events, and tonight, the group gathered will have the privilege of witnessing another. Khrushchev tells the guests to gather at the window, because Minister Malyshev has a demonstration.

Malyshev announces that a new power plant, which had started to be built nearly three years prior, became fully operational that week. He continues, saying that the power plant will begin providing power to half of Moscow in exactly two minutes. The guests watch as the lights flicker out in a wave across the city, until the lights of the Kremlin go dark, followed quickly by the Metropol. Then the lights revive, block by block, powered by the first nuclear power plant in the world.

Though it is an impressive demonstration of political power, a few of Moscow’s citizens are inconvenienced by this outage. Anna and her fellow actors performing The Seagull improvise when the lights go out. Two waiters collide in the Piazza; Webster, the American, is trapped in an elevator. But in the dining room of the Boyarsky, which is lit by candlelight, the customers are served without interruption.