Piperka

Young army veteran Aleksandr Kogan wants to support his parents with his printing business, but he's under the thumb of a "security company". As a talented counterfeiter, he's managed to satisfy their demands by paying in fake dollar bills. While the mafia has spared Aleks thus far, someone else is not so fortunate: Azariah, an undead psychopomp who should be aiding those in the grave instead of crawling out of the one they threw him in. As Aleks looks for ways out from under the mafia, Azariah, hell-bent on tracking down his own son, tries to drill his way right back in. What are they gonna do, kill him again?

The two cross paths when they both turn to an art smuggler in need of false certificates and a courier to deliver stolen, religious iconography across Russia, Ukraine, and to a drop point in Hungary. If Azariah can score this gig, he'll find his son. If Aleks can pull it off, he could make more in a week than he's ever made in a year! But there's a reason it pays so well: the trek is a three-day drive through old Soviet roads in a crumbling world of corrupt border guards, armed highwaymen, and weather that could flip a car. Your fellow travelers tend to be drug runners, jewel thieves -- you know, upstanding members of society who would never dream of stabbing you in the back when they figure out what kind of cargo you're carting through the countryside.

Ikon is inspired by the Judeo-Christian Book of Tobit, the book Comrade Criminal by Stephen Handelman, Balto-Slavic pagan mythology, and the movies Брат and Брат II.