Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy and Koroviev

The encounter between Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, the chairman of the tenants' association at 302-bis Sadovaya Street, and Koroviev, a member of Woland's retinue, is a pivotal episode of bureaucratic corruption, demonic trickery, and swift retribution. Koroviev, posing as a foreign interpreter, ensnares the greedy Nikanor Ivanovich in a bribery scheme involving a fake currency exchange, leading to the chairman's arrest, public humiliation, and eventual confinement in a psychiatric clinic. This relationship exposes the moral rot within the Soviet housing system and serves as a grotesque, theatrical punishment for avarice, orchestrated by the infernal powers that have taken up residence in Apartment No. 50.

The Trap is Set

Following the death of Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, Nikanor Ivanovich is besieged by tenants clamoring for the deceased's living space. Fleeing this pressure, he enters Apartment No. 50, only to find Koroviev already installed there. Koroviev, a tall, skinny figure in a checkered jacket and cracked pince-nez, introduces himself as an interpreter for a foreign artiste, Mr. Woland, who has been invited by the director of the Variety Theatre, Stepan Likhodeev. He produces a forged letter from Likhodeev requesting the foreigner's temporary registration. Koroviev then proposes that the tenants' association rent the entire apartment to Woland for a week, appealing to Nikanor Ivanovich's greed by mentioning a millionaire's villa in Nice and the association's need for fuel money. The chairman, a practical and prudent man, agrees to a price of five hundred roubles a day. Koroviev, with great speed and dexterity, draws up a contract, obtains Woland's sweeping signature, and hands Nikanor Ivanovich five stacks of new banknotes. He also slips the chairman a thick, crackling wad of cash as a bribe, whispering that with foreigners it is done, and that there are no witnesses. The wad, Nikanor Ivanovich later insists, crept into his briefcase by itself.

The Bribe and the Betrayal

After the chairman leaves, a low voice from the bedroom—Woland's—declares that he did not like Nikanor Ivanovich, calling him a chiseller and a crook, and asks if he can be arranged not to come any more. Koroviev immediately dials a number and, in a tearful voice, informs on the chairman, claiming to be a tenant named Timofei Kondratievich Kvastsov. He reports that Nikanor Ivanovich is speculating in foreign currency and has four hundred dollars wrapped in newspaper in the ventilation of his privy. The trap is sprung. Nikanor Ivanovich, having locked himself in his privy, unwraps the bribe and finds it contains four hundred roubles, which he hides in the ventilation duct. Minutes later, two citizens in white side-buttoned shirts arrive, find the wad, but discover it now contains bluish-greenish dollars with the portrait of an old man. The briefcase, meanwhile, is empty of the contract, the passport, and the money. Nikanor Ivanovich, in a frenzy, cries out that there are unclean powers in the house, but he is arrested and led away, staggering like a drunk man.

The Currency Theatre Dream

Delivered to Professor Stravinsky's clinic, Nikanor Ivanovich is visited by a dream that is a direct consequence of his encounter with Koroviev. He finds himself in a theatre where a master of ceremonies, a young artiste with a pleasant baritone, calls him to the stage to turn over his currency. The audience is composed entirely of bearded men, all currency dealers. The artiste, with great psychological insight, explains that the tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes never. Nikanor Ivanovich, protesting his innocence, is met with whistles and shouts. The dream features a parade of other currency hoarders, including Sergei Gerardovich Dunchil, whose hidden dollars and diamonds are exposed by his mistress, Ida Herkulanovna Vors. The actor Sawa Potapovich Kurolesov performs excerpts from Pushkin's The Covetous Knight, a tale of a miser who dies on his chest of currency. The dream culminates in a scene where cooks offer soup to the audience, urging them to turn over their currency and go home. Nikanor Ivanovich, waking in terror, cries out that he has no currency, that Pushkin should turn over his for them. The dream, a grotesque parody of a show trial, is a theatrical punishment for his greed, orchestrated by the infernal powers that have ensnared him.

Thematic Significance

The relationship between Nikanor Ivanovich and Koroviev is a microcosm of the novel's critique of Soviet society. Koroviev, a demonic trickster, exploits the chairman's greed and the systemic corruption of the housing bureaucracy. The bribe, the forged documents, and the false denunciation are all tools of the infernal powers, but they are also the everyday instruments of a society built on fear and self-interest. Nikanor Ivanovich's dream, with its currency theatre and its parade of hoarders, is a grotesque parody of the show trials and public confessions that characterized the Great Terror. The episode reveals that the devil's work is not to create evil, but to expose the evil that already exists in the human heart. The housing problem, as Woland later observes, has corrupted them, and Nikanor Ivanovich is a perfect example of this corruption. His punishment is not a moral lesson, but a theatrical spectacle, a carnival of humiliation that leaves him broken and confined to a psychiatric ward.