Tintin in the Land of the Soviets is sent with his dog Snowy on an assignment to the Soviet Union, departing from Brussels. En route to Moscow, an agent of the OGPU - the Soviet secret police - sabotages the train and declares the reporter to be a "dirty little bourgeois". The Berlin Police blame Tintin for the bombing but he escapes to the border of the Soviet Union. Following closely, the OGPU agent finds Tintin and brings him before the local Commissar's office, instructing the Commissar to make the reporter "disappear ... accidentally". Escaping again, Tintin finds "how the Soviets fool the poor idiots who still
Tintin (character) from his stories." It is this sense of humour that makes the appeal of Tintin truly international. "The Adventures of Tintin" was one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, and it remains popular today. By the time of the centenary of Hergé's birth in 2007, "Tintin" had been published in more than 70 languages with sales of more than 200 million copies. The study of Tintin has become the life work of many literary critics, observers sometimes referring to this study as "Tintinology". A prominent literary critic of Tintin is Philippe Goddin, "Belgium's leading authority on