Disappearance of Styopa Likhodeev

The disappearance of Styopa Likhodeev, the director of the Variety Theatre, is the first and most spectacular demonstration of Woland's power to intervene directly in the lives of corrupt Moscow officials. It is not a murder or a simple kidnapping, but a teleportation—a punishment that removes the victim from the narrative entirely, depositing him hundreds of miles away without explanation, and thereby establishing the pattern of swift, inexplicable justice that will define the demonic retinue's presence in the city.

Background and the Victim

Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeev, known as Styopa, is the director of the Variety Theatre, a position he holds despite being, in the words of Woland's demon Azazello, "as much a director as I'm a bishop." He is a drunkard and a womanizer who uses his position to have liaisons with women, does no work, and pulls the wool over his superiors' eyes. He shares the infamous Apartment No. 50 on Sadovaya Street with the recently deceased Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, an apartment with a strange reputation where previous tenants have vanished without a trace. On the morning after Berlioz's death, Styopa awakens with a terrible hangover, unable to remember the previous day's events, and finds the mysterious foreigner Woland waiting for him in his bedroom, claiming to have signed a contract for a performance at the Variety Theatre—a contract Styopa has no memory of.

The Confrontation in the Bedroom

Woland, accompanied by his retinue—the long, checkered Koroviev, the enormous black cat Behemoth, and the short, red-haired, fanged Azazello—confronts Styopa in his own bedroom. They accuse him of terrible swinishness: drinking, using his position for liaisons with women, doing nothing, and knowing nothing of what he is supposed to do. The cat snitches that he has been availing himself of a government car. Azazello, with a nasal twang, declares that he does not understand how Styopa got to be a director. The scene is a mock trial, a summary judgment delivered by the demonic court. Woland, observing the proceedings, states that his retinue requires room and that the one too many in the apartment is precisely Styopa.

The Teleportation to Yalta

At Woland's command, Azazello is permitted to "chuck him the devil out of Moscow." The cat barks "Scat!" and the bedroom starts spinning around Styopa. He hits his head against the doorpost and loses consciousness, thinking he is dying. When he opens his eyes, he finds himself sitting on a stone jetty, with the sea rocking at his feet, a brilliant blue sky above, and a white city on the mountains behind him. He asks a passing smoker what city this is and is told it is Yalta. The director of the Variety Theatre has been teleported from Moscow to the Crimean coast in an instant, a distance of nearly a thousand miles. He quietly gasps and sinks down on his side, his head striking the warm stone, and consciousness leaves him again.

Consequences and Aftermath

Styopa's disappearance throws the Variety Theatre into chaos. The financial director, Grigory Danilovich Rimsky, and the administrator, Ivan Savelyevich Varenukha, are baffled by telegrams from Yalta that appear to be from Styopa, claiming he has been thrown there by Woland's hypnosis. Rimsky, trying to find a rational explanation, calculates that if Styopa had flown, the plane would have had to travel at twelve thousand miles an hour, which is impossible. The event is a direct violation of the laws of physics and geography, a miracle that cannot be explained away. It also serves as a catalyst for further demonic attacks: Varenukha, who attempts to deliver the telegrams to the authorities, is intercepted by Azazello and a vampire, beaten, and dragged back to Apartment No. 50, where he is turned into a vampire himself. The disappearance of Styopa Likhodeev is thus not an isolated incident but the first domino in a chain of supernatural events that will dismantle the normal order of the Variety Theatre and the lives of those connected to it.