" Each morning she came out to see it had grown. We had to bring in a new, taller tree every night. We used seven trees, and on her birthday the last one was filled with pineapples and oranges."
His favorite tale, though, is based on the movie "The Game," in which Michael Douglas plays a very rich man with a hollow life. His brother orders him a fantasy, a psychological thriller of a game that once started can't be controlled or predicted.
Knyazev's game involved a construction magnate, planted drugs, a false arrest, actors, police cars, a jail, a meeting at the Kremlin and a bogus letter written by the queen of England. The cost: $300,000.
Is Knyazev telling the truth? Is he not?
That's the strange, beguiling beauty of the new Russia.
"My country, I must say, is rich in personality. Our people have always been interesting and original," Knyazev says. "And now comes the epoch when such personalities can realize themselves."
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jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
Fleishman was recently on assignment in Moscow.
