The Case in the Square

The giant trunk appeared out of nowhere.

It sat in the middle of Red Square, blocking views of St. Basil’s Cathedral and looking a bit like the stylish younger brother of the Lenin Mausoleum.

It caused a storm of controversy, with non-stop television coverage and denials by all manner of responsible officials that they were in any way, well, responsible.

It could have been an episode from a story by Ilf and Petrov or Gogol.

In the end, the giant box vanished as mysteriously as it appeared.

The trunk, apparently a joint idea of the GUM Department Store (located opposite the Kremlin) and the Louis Vuitton brand, was supposed to be a pavilion for a nonprofit exhibit.

That it was nine meters high and thirty meters long, plus its peculiar placement – on Red Square next to the History Museum – meant that it effectively blocked the vista across the square from its main entrance through the Iversky Gates. Instead of the familiar postcard view of St. Basil’s, all tourists could see was a very large Louis Vuitton trunk, an incongruous structure that looked as if it had dropped off a baggage carousel from a parallel universe full of giant rich people.

Strangely, the scandal only hit after the trunk had been sitting quietly on the square for ten days. Communists condemned the “lawlessness” of putting things on Red Square and prepared a new bill that would ban such stunts in “sacred” places. (That’s right, Communist Party Duma members called Red Square “sacred.”)

Preservationists, meanwhile, were horrified that such a bizarre object could be allowed to dominate Red Square, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Bloggers quipped that it might serve as a hint for Putin to pack his bags and wondered if the bribe that made the installation possible was big enough to fill the trunk.

Others said that Red Square might as well be livened up by something unusual, and in the end having a trunk on display in the center of Moscow is no stranger than Lenin’s unburied body.

The critics prevailed.

GUM disowned the structure, saying it was too big.

The Federal Guard Service and Moscow’s advertising department both said they never agreed to the structure.

Workers began to dismantle it as if it was never there, and without any official orders.

State channel Rossiya 24 aired a live feed of the trunk being disassembled in a mini screen inset to regular coverage.

To this date, no one has yet explained how something the size of a three-story building could just appear next to the Kremlin without anyone noticing.

“There couldn’t have been any written authorization. There is nothing wrong with the trunk itself and the good intentions. But clearly there are some problems with the sense of proportion.”

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov