The Master and Margarita:Photo illustrations by Mikhail Stavsky and Nikolay Jolin
Mikhail Stavskywww.coroflot.comIn 2000 — the year The Master and Margarita turned sixty (Bulgakov, after all, wrote it up until his death in 1940) — designer Mikhail Stavsky and photographer Nikolai Zholin created a set of photo‑illustrations for a telecom company’s calendar. Unsurprisingly, each image puts a telephone front and center.
“So there’s really none, then?“
“Calm down, calm down, calm down, professor, Berlioz muttered, afraid of upsetting the patient. Sit here a minute with Comrade Bezdomny—I’ll just run to the corner, give a ring, and then we’ll take you wherever you wish.“
“Police? Ivan shouted into the receiver. Police? Comrade duty officer, dispatch five motor‑cycles with machine‑guns to catch the foreign consultant. What? Pick me up—I’ll come with you. Poet Bezdomny speaking from the madhouse.“
“Hello, Grigory Danilovich, Stepa said quietly. This is Likhodeev. The thing is… er… I’ve got this… um… artiste Woland here… So I wanted to ask—what about tonight?“
“Hallo! I feel bound to report that the chairman of house association No. 302‑bis on Sadovaya, Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, is dealing in hard currency.“
“Give me an emergency call to Yalta“, Rimsky said into the phone.
“Smart!” Varenuhka thought to himself.
The telephone itself burst into ringing in the deadly silence, straight in the finance director’s face; he started and turned cold. “My nerves are shot,” he thought, lifting the receiver—only to recoil and turn white as paper.
“Hallo!“, said the shameless chambermaid, one foot on a chair as she lifted the handset.
At a huge desk sat an empty suit, guiding a dry pen across the paper. There was no head above the collar, no hands in the cuffs, yet the suit worked on, oblivious to the uproar around it.
Replacing the receiver, the professor turned, screamed—and saw a nurse in a kerchief bearing a bag labeled “Leeches.” Her mouth was a man’s, crooked to the ears with a single fang; her eyes were dead.
“A downright brigand’s mug!“ Margarita thought, studying her street companion.
“Azazello speaking,“ said the voice in the receiver.
“Dear, dear Azazello!” cried Margarita.
“Time to fly,” Azazello replied, his tone pleased by Margarita’s joyous outburst.
A fat fellow in a black silk top‑hat, hiccupping and reeking of cognac, emerged from the bushes; learning that Margarita had come on a broom, he rigged up a makeshift telephone from two sticks and demanded a car at once.
