A summary of "Kasyanov’s Year" by Nikolai Svechin

"Kasyanov’s Year" is a historical detective novel by Nikolai Svechin, published in 2016. The action takes place in 1900, a leap year popularly known as Kasyanov’s Year: according to the calendar, February 29th is St. Cassian’s Day, and it was considered an unlucky year. The novel is part of a larger series about St. Petersburg detective Alexei Lykov, a special assignments officer in the Police Department.

An order from St. Petersburg

Interior Minister Sipyagin summons Police Department Director Zvolyansky and hands him a letter received from Finance Minister Sergei Witte. The author of the letter is a certain Afanasopulo, an appraiser at a Kyiv private commercial bank. He reports financial irregularities: the bank’s director, Mikhail Mering, is using the bank to finance his own Kyiv joint-stock house-building company, understating the value of the collateral, and thereby leading the company to inevitable bankruptcy. The complication is that Mering is Witte’s son-in-law, married to his adopted daughter, Sofia. The Finance Minister fears a scandal and requests a covert investigation.

Without hesitation, Zvolyansky dispatches Court Councilor Alexei Nikolaevich Lykov to Kyiv — his best official on special assignments, who had never suffered a single failure in business. Before leaving, Lykov visits Colonel Baron Taube of the War Ministry to inquire about Governor-General Dragomirov, the de facto "master" of Kyiv and a hero of the Russo-Turkish War. Taube gives his friend a letter to the duty general of the district headquarters, Mavrin, known by the nickname "Wild Mavra," who is close to Dragomirov and could help in an emergency.

Kyiv. The first obstacles

Arriving in Kyiv, Lykov checks into the Continental Hotel on Nikolaevska Street. Governor Trepov is away, and the head of the chancery, Gudim-Levkovich, greets the detective with hostility and openly warns that Mehring "will not be harmed." Only the next day does Lykov secure an appointment with the governor. Trepov recounts the story of Mehring’s father, a renowned Kievan German doctor who cobbled together a "Kiev principality" thanks to information from Jewish patients about the sale of city land. His son inherited central land and developed it for construction, along with the wealthy entrepreneur Margolin, the engineer Petrovsky, and the civil servant Golubev. The result was a construction boom that produced a thousand new stone houses for the city in five years.

However, Afanasopoulo had been missing for four days by then. The head of the detective department, Collegiate Assessor Zhelyazovsky, considers the disappearance suspicious, although no body has yet been found. The governor insists the appraiser simply fled, fearing the consequences of his denunciation, but Lykov doesn’t believe this.

A body in the river and a double trail

Afanasopoulos’s body is soon discovered in Dnipro. It is also discovered that shortly before the appraiser’s disappearance, Tupchiy, a certified appraiser for the city council known for his incorruptibility, was murdered. Two murders, linked to a banking fraud, point to a single source. The detective concludes that Afanasopoulos wasn’t simply complaining about inflated collateral: in his letter to Witte, he mentioned something "worthy of hard labor." This concerned the deliberate undervaluation of city real estate — a house and a theater — by the city council, which damaged the city treasury. Afanasopoulos’s signature appeared on the document.

The figure of the hired killer Areshnikov, linked to a professional criminal gang, gradually emerges. Lykov begins working with the local warden, Aslanov — a dexterous and fearless Tatar skilled in French boxing. During a raid on Nikolskaya Sloboda, they arrest the gang’s leader, Bezshkurny, and during a search, they find a passport in the name of Afanasopoulo — direct evidence.

Hunt for killers

The situation becomes more complicated: the Korba brothers, Areshnikov’s henchmen, nearly kill Lykov and Aslanov in a brothel on Glubochitsa. Both detectives find themselves unarmed and are saved only by a fast horse and the driver’s composure. Despite this failure, Lykov does not retreat. Aslanov’s network reports that the gang has disappeared into the Goloseevsky Forest. Meanwhile, at a dacha in Syrets, following a tip from retired gendarme Ladonka, another group of people hiding out is discovered — presumably Areshnikov himself and his men.

Between raids, Lykov meets with Prozument, an elderly Jewish contractor to whom Mering owes twenty-two thousand rubles. Through him, the detective gains an inside look at the construction crisis: the nouveau riche had racked up orders, borrowed from several banks simultaneously, and now can’t pay off either the contractors or the depositors.

The Denunciation of Mehring

Lykov meets with Margolin, the main investor in the housing construction company. He reveals the full picture: Mehring, through Afanasopoulo, obtained an illegal reduction in the tax assessment of his properties by bribing the city council. Now both participants in this scheme are dead. Lykov directly tells Margolin that Mehring likely ordered Afanasopoulo’s murder through Areshnikov, and that some officials in the Kyiv detective police helped the killers cover their tracks. The millionaire is shocked: he financed the construction of Kyiv and yet had no idea of the crimes taking place nearby. Lykov advises him to immediately replace the company’s management and conduct an audit.

The end of the investigation

Areshnikov’s gang is eventually located and arrested. One of the captured bandits testifies that Afanasopulo’s murder was a contract killing. The detective compiles a detailed report for Sipyagin and Witte: Mehring’s financial fraud has been proven, the director of the housing construction company’s connections to criminals have been established, and the indirect responsibility of several Kyiv detective police officials has been established. For Mehring, the investigation spells the end: if not hard labor, then Siberian exile — as Lykov promised Margolin. Witte, who had previously said he was prepared for bad news, receives exactly what he feared: the unvarnished truth about his son-in-law.