Ah! Alcohol too. ETOH is excellent corrupting solvent.
Okay, I was wrong. The flowers by Yasya's bed were not left like the horse head in The Godfather by the oligarchs. They were gift to Vasya's mom on her retirement. The day he and Sergei met with IMF "babes"...I have to go back.
In the gold vault Dimitryi asks Olya if "your husband, your ex-husband," drinks. "Vasya, no. Never." Okay, so at lunch with the IMF women Vasya drinks right? It's a luncheon! A little vino, a little vodka for the "collector of women" who is going to put the moves on the IMF head, and a little vodka for Vasya, who never drinks. He must be convivial (to secure the "one year, two would be better" loan payback schedule). At the luncheon, whether under the influence or not, Vasya agreed to the IMF's conditions which included not lowering the retirement age, and issued an order to that effect. The agreeable companions repair to a nightclub where a sloshed Vasya drinks shots, dances with the at times mortified at times agreeable IMF head and female companion whereupon Vasya and the IMF head land in a swimming pool. Sergei says something about Vasya and the IMF head's companion ending up back at a hotel. However that was Vasya makes it, by powers unknown to him, back home for the night where he falls, dead drunk into a dead drunk, deep slumber.
Mom put the flowers in his room as sarcasm since she, the morning must go back to work.
There is a cutback to the vault scene the next morning as well. The man who makes his daily rounds lets them out. Olya scolds at how ridiculous it is that there is no way out and no way to communicate. The man begins to explain that there is an emergency red button but Dimitryi cuts him off. "You know that, I know that, but there is no reason for her to know that."
So, money, sex, booze and fatigue. Vasya and his personal appointees are extremely harried, thus prey to the Great Corrupters.
My two favorite characters are becoming the defense minister and Oksana, Sergei's secretary. The defense minister has this beefy face, he's beefy all over actually, and a stoic mien. Oksana is the picture of efficient professionalism doing everything she can to round the edges on her "yokel" boss, Sergei.
