Six Degrees of Separation: Is It Enough?

Artist Lev Zbarsky, one of the designers of the Samovar’s dark, velvety red interior (have a look at the "Cigar Room" next time you're there), frequently can be seen at Roman’s table, just opposite the white piano. I hope Zbarsky (pictured here with Bella Akhmadulina) will forgive me for skipping over his many accomplishments and credits as an artist and a human being to tell you right away how I learned who he was. The friend I was percolating with at the Samovar gestured in his direction, saying, “See that man over there? His father embalmed Lenin.” That’s right, folks. Zbarsky’s dad invented and perfected the secret formula that has kept Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in good condition since his death in 1924, even in evacuation during World War II. The same formula, we can only assume, was applied to Stalin as well until his abrupt removal from the Mausoleum during the dismantling of the Cult of Personality. But Sergei Dovlatov has been quoted as implying that he thinks Stalin might still be in good shape even in his earthen plot behind the Mausoleum. You can read about that in this pretty interesting article by Keith Gessin about what transpired with the high-level embalming profession during the breakup of the Soviet Union.

For more on this fascinating topic you could read Zbarsky’s brother’s book. Ilya Zbarsky, who worked with his father in the Kremlin embalming lab, wrote an insider’s tell-all in the 1990s, with the help of Sam Hutchinson. The book is called Lenin’s Embalmers and is now out-of-print, but probably still in remarkably good condition.

I’m fairly certain that our Zbarsky, Felix Lev (as Anatoly Naiman points out, the only Russian with two first names), fled to this country to escape constantly being associated with his somewhat macabre family. I imagine he thought he could wipe out the memory of secret-recipe embalming fluid (however magical) with the Samovar’s exquisite home-infused vodkas. Even if this has proven impossible for F.L. Zbarsky, we can demonstrate our heart-felt solidarity with him by raising a glass at the Samovar. My friend Celeste swears by the horseradish infusion…