In his brief, brilliant study "Nikolai Gogol, " Vladimir Nabokov accounts for Gogol's artistry through this and what he calls Gogol's "four dimensional" prose, a sinuous style that captures characters in their inner being.
It is not Vladimir Putin, nor the Media Minister, Mikhail Lesin, nor the head of the Federal Security Service, Nikolai Patrushev, nor the prosecutor-general Vladimir Ustinov.