A light, dynamic, adventure-filled story. In some places it is lyrical and sad, in others it is ironic and angry, but on the whole it is a life-affirming book for all ages without restrictions. The foreman of the road patrol service, who is also the honored “master of machine milking,” Sergei Ivanovich Bryukhatin, nicknamed “Belly,” did not like blacks and Jews. The first, because they came in large numbers, the second, because they didn’t leave. He also did not like communists and Uzbeks, Chechens and speech therapists, astronauts and knackers. And he didn’t love his wife either, because she spoke so quickly that his slow thoughts couldn’t keep up with her, but on the marital bed it was the other way around. Apparently, he did not love his children either, for what loving father would call his seven-year-old son a mentie, and his eight-month-old daughter a mentie. And Brukhatin loved only his striped staff, the inexhaustible source of all his joys in life.