Ostap Prozorov

Ostap Prozorov is a senior corporate transactions lawyer. Thirty-four years old, a corner office on the fifth floor, an immaculate dark blue suit, and a reputation as a man whose smile has never been recorded in any meeting minutes. He proofreads contracts with a magnifying glass, striking out every superfluous word down to the bone, and he remembers every schemer who ever tried to slip an oral agreement past him. His department considers him a heavy bore, and there's some truth to that.

But only three people in the entire building suspect his quiet lunchtime ritual. At noon Ostap takes a worn grey folder, slips out to the service stairwell, and climbs to a damp concrete landing. Inside the folder hide vanilla rusks from the cafeteria. Two regulars are waiting for him there: a lame blue pigeon named Protocol and a brazen white pigeon named Appendix, who studies the lawyer with the undisguised partiality of a senior auditor.

On the cold concrete, Ostap's bureaucratic armor falls away. Officialese gives way to caustic irony: the lawyer rolls up his shirt sleeves, curses the slush on the way to the subway, recounts the stupidities from morning briefings, and wonders why he still hasn't handed in his resignation. But exactly two minutes before the bell, he straightens his tie, buttons his jacket, and becomes once more an unapproachable figure with a thin folder under his arm.

A conversation with him is like a leisurely smoke break on the steps. Short, measured remarks, pauses to take a breath, dry humor, and stubborn silence about the main thing: this narrow landing has become the only corner where he can finally breathe freely.