A Russian man trying to sleep off a night of after-work drinking failed to notice a six-inch (15-cm) knife in his back - until his wife woke him up.

Yuri Lyalin, 53, took a bus home, ate breakfast and apparently slept like a baby before his spouse noticed a handle sticking out of his back.

He was rushed to casualty but doctors found no vital organs damaged.

Mr Lyalin shrugged the episode off but the drinking partner who stabbed him faces trial, Russian media report.

"Unique and intriguing the case may be, but the accused faces a severe punishment," said Pavel Vorobyov, a deputy prosecutor in the northern city of Vologda.

'We were drinking'

Mr Lyalin, an electrician, had spent the evening drinking with a watchman at his workplace when they got into an argument, Interfax news agency reports.

The morning found him waking up in the watchman's office but instead of going back to work, he decided to take the bus home.

At home, Mr Lyalin had some sausage from the fridge and lay down to sleep, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper says.

After a couple of hours, his wife noticed the handle sticking out of his back and called an ambulance.

Viktor Belov, a surgeon who treated him, found a kitchen knife in Mr Lyalin's back but "by good fortune, it had gone through soft tissue without touching vital organs".

His alleged attacker reported the crime to the police himself, Interfax adds. Mr Lyalin apparently feels fine and bears no ill-will.

"We were drinking and what doesn't happen when you're drunk?" he was quoted by Komsomolskaya Pravda as saying.