FOREWORD FROM ANOTHER DOUBLE

Who would have thought that this quiet little mouse from the Presidential Administration would rise to become the Empress?!

She secured me a position most people in this country only whisper about. My job isn’t difficult: I’m a double. I play the part of the Head of State. It used to be the President. Now it’s the Emperor. I even get to wear the crown.

What almost no one knows is that the Head of State himself is a double. Which makes me a double of a double. But that’s classified. Not even the Chinese government has a clue. The Americans do, because the Empress spies for them. I help her with that too.

Sometimes I think the Empress is the only genuine human being left around here. She does her work without lies or hypocrisy. She calls it “the new sincerity.” She lives by the wisdom of Tortilla the Turtle: “If you have to fight, then fight!”

Soon, doubles like me won’t be needed at all. The Head of State is retreating into the shadows, occupied with back-channel diplomacy. As for me, I’m about to be displayed to the entire nation, lying in a coma inside a refrigerator—so the real players can enjoy more room to manoeuvre. Just a background role. That, incidentally, is what this book will be called. And for me? The less text, the fewer mistakes.

Meanwhile, the country is roaring with noisy reforms, victorious wars, and profitable alliances. I just returned from Mexico myself, and then Kazakhstan suddenly went up in flames right before my eyes—and all of it had to be staged as if the Emperor was calm and firmly in control.

We live in fascinating times. And they’ll only get more fascinating—when people finally see Putin in the refrigerator.

Damn, I never wrote any of this. Putin has no doubles.