$ 3793 for "The Flying Ass"!

How could he, the famous photographer of the "Ogonyok" magazine, expecting the most awful results after the scandal having been started by M.Suslov (the USSR's "Chief of Ideology") as a reaction to his photo "A Diving Girl", know that the photo would be sold in the "Sotheby's` auction for $3793
In 1960 M.Suslov publicly called that photo "The flying ass". The newspaper "Pravda" reacted immediately and issued the letter of "a disturbed reader". The "Ogonyok" 's chief editor Sofronov has been punished for "the propaganda of formalism". At the time Lev Borodulin, the photographer who was guilty in all that, worked in Roma, in the Olympic Games.
His friends recommended him not to come back home (they were joking, maybe!). The story had the happy end but the brand of a formalist remained for a long time.

(Sh.Shraiman. Newspaper “Vesti” Israel).