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Styopa (Stepan Bogdanovich) LikhodeyevThe Director of the Variety Theater. Likhodeyev's last name comes from an archaic form meaning roughly "Evildoer." In the 1929 version, Likhodeev was named Garusia Pedulaev, and his prototype was an acquaintance of Bulgakov's from Vladikavkaz, Tuadzhin Peizulaev (Bulgakov's co-author on the play "Sons of the Mullah"). Woland sent Pedulaev not to Yalta, but to Vladikavkaz, where Bulgakov had lived 1919-21. In later editions Pedulaev's name was changed to Stepa Bombeev or Likhodeev, but it was only in the 1937 edition that he was sent to Yalta. Likhodeev retains a trace of the earlier location in Chapter 27, when he returns in a Caucasian fur cap. The motif of hangovers, memory loss, and port-wine was rehearsed by Bulgakov in his earlier feuilletons "The Cup of Life" [Chasha zhizni] (Nakanune, 1922) and "Day of Our Life" [Den' nashei zhizni] (Nakanune, 1923). Likhodeev's worry about the seal on Berlioz's door and a "questionable conversation" that had taken place on 24 April may be related to the fate of an actor acquaintance of Bulgakov's, Nikolai Vasil'evich Bezekirsii. Bezekirskii was arrested and exiled to Ryazan' for three years for "a counterrevolutionary conversation in a certain house I often visited." Bulgakov received a letter from Bezekirskii about this situation in April, 1929. (S 453)
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