Vladimir Sorokin: The Blizzard

Crouper brushed off the snow with his mitten: Glass sparkled. He cleaned the snow off the object. It turned out to be a large, three-bucket, green glass bottle set in a basket holder.

‘So that’s it, yur ’onor. . . .’ Crouper cleared the snow from the enormous bottleneck, and sniffed it. ‘Vodka!’

He kicked the crust of ice on the bottle, knocked it off, and turned it over. Not a drop came out.

‘Drunk up the whole thing, he did,’ Crouper concluded reproachfully.

‘He drank it,’ the doctor agreed, ‘and gave up the ghost right on the road. There you have it, good old Russian stupidity.’