Vladimir Shubarin

Something wonderful and terrifying happens to the girl Masha on the night before New Year’s. She will find herself in a fairy‑tale Christmas‑tree kingdom, where she will meet the King and the Queen, whom she will recognize as her father and stepmother; in the thicket, vicious and treacherous rats will be hiding. She will learn that once a year, on New Year’s Eve, the magical Krakatuk nut ripens here, and it can grant the most сокровенное wish. And Masha will also meet the ugly and unhappy Nutcracker in this fairy‑tale forest, and she will manage to free him from evil spells…

Based on the events that took place in Odessa in 1910, when, on the instructions of the Foreign Bureau of the RSDLP, a prominent Bolshevik underground worker arrived in the city under the guise of a French timber merchant, who was to organize the delivery of illegal literature to Russia through the Odessa port. The task can be completed. In Odessa, a variety show theater was created, which, having gained fame, toured Russia and received "theater props" from France...