World: Restive Husbands

Mikhail Zaitsev made a beautiful corpse. Propped in the coffin he had carved and painted himself, he wore his Sunday suit and an expression of noble serenity. Then, when the village photographer had finished taking his picture, Zaitsev leaped out and helped his neighbors down the generous supplies of vodka and cold cuts he had laid in for the wake. Next day, the neighbors mailed the funeral picture to his estranged wife in another village, explaining that Comrade Zaitsev had been electrocuted by a high-tension wire.

Like Zaitsev, whose sole aim was to dodge his alimony payments, many oppressed Russian husbands try...