Pray, cast your eyes upon the latest absurdity emerging from the provincial quarters! Mr. Alexander Babochkin, a gentleman of commercial ambitions and owner of the firm 'Gazinvest1', has found himself in a most precarious predicament with the local magistracy. It appears our dear merchant believed that the earth itself would simply submit to his will without the tedious necessity of actually building upon it.

The court, in a fit of stern righteousness, has commanded this particular 'speculator' to vacate six parcels of land in the Zaozyornoye district. Mr. Babochkin is now required—with all haste—to remove his fences, his rusting machinery, his wretched shanties, and the various heaps of debris that he so thoughtfully left as monuments to his industry.

"The defendant shall clear the land within ten days," the judicial decree proclaims with a coldness that would freeze a banker's heart, "lest he pay a penalty of five thousand roubles for every single day of his obstinacy."

Furthermore, as a final flourish to this comedy of errors, the gentleman is ordered to pay fifty thousand roubles in state duties—a tidy sum that shall migrate from his pockets to the federal coffers. Should Mr. Babochkin feel that the scales of justice were weighted unfairly, he may appeal to the Eighth Arbitration Court, though one wonders if his arguments will be as sturdy as the houses he failed to build.

It is whispered in the corridors of power that this is but the tip of the iceberg. This same merchant had previously been stripped of twenty-nine other plots intended for 'townhouses.' The authorities, grown weary of his imaginative approach to commerce, noted with great indignation that not a single brick had been laid, while the rental payments—those tedious obligations of the honest tradesman—remained entirely unpaid.

Thus we see the fate of the modern rogue: he secures the land with a flourish, promises a paradise of architecture, and in the end, is left with nothing but a pile of rubbish and a very expensive lesson in the art of the lease.