William Pokhlyobkin was a renowned Soviet and Russian historian, born in Moscow to a Russian revolutionary and a veteran of both the Soviet-Finnish War and the German-Soviet War. After his service, he became a prolific author of books and articles, specializing in the fields of history, politics, and Russian cuisine. One of his best-known works was a monograph titled A History of Vodka, published in 1991 and translated into several languages.
Because one of his books, 1968’s Tea: Types, Properties, and Use, was popular in dissident circles, William himself was labeled a dissident and barred from publication for many years. Eventually, however, the ban was lifted, and in 1993, he was even awarded the Langhe Ceretto Prize, an international award for excellence in culinary writing.
In the spring of 2000, William was living in Podolsk and working on another book, Cuisine of the Century. The manuscript was behind schedule, though, and William’s editor at the Polyfakt publishing house had become concerned about the delay, as well as the fact that he hadn’t heard anything from William in a while. He traveled from Moscow to Podolsk to see William in person.
The editor discovered William Pokhlyobkin dead in his apartment. He had been stabbed nearly a dozen times with a screwdriver, and a post-mortem determined that there was an excessive amount of alcohol in his system, even though William didn’t drink. It was further theorized that he had been murdered at some point between March 27th and March 31st, 2000. At the time of his death, he was seventy-six years old.
William Pokhlyobkin left behind several unpublished manuscripts and lingering questions about the motive behind his murder.
Crime Immemorial 