Guba Ivashka Kalachnikov was a Russian court doctor for forty years and had served under the reign of Ivan IV. Kalachnikov was actually illiterate and needed a clerk to read for him, but he used various symbols to track his various drugs and medicines. After Russia acknowledged the existence of Grantville and granted the town access to the Embassy Bureau, Guba, very interested in the future, paid the embassy a visit. He discovered that some of his remedies were unhealthy, and that some, such as mercury, were quite deadly. Kalachnikov had treated Ivan IV with mercury, and worried that the mercury had caused the Tsar's madness and indirectly led to the Time of Troubles. He also realized that he had to replace his remedies with Western drugs, especially from Grantville, but had no ready means