Vera Altayskaya

A fairy tale about a conceited young man and a young woman with a tyrannical step-mother, who must overcome magical trials in order to be together.

The story that happened on the farm near Dikanka on the night before Christmas, when the village blacksmith Vakula, having saddled the Devil, brought to his beloved Oksana, the daughter of a rich Cossack Chub, queen's "сherevichki"(the little women shoes) from the capital — St. Petersburg.

One day, King Yeremei decides to go on a long hike in order to consider all his areas and compile their register. A well appears on his way home, but as soon as the sovereign bent over him, he was seized by the underwater king Chudo-Yudo and demanded an unusual ransom for his release — that which is in the state of Yeremei, but which he does not know about. The tsar is forced to agree to these conditions, because he thinks that each blade of grass was taken into account in the inventory — he still does not suspect that in his absence the Queen gave birth to him an heir.

The composition includes two short stories: "The Swineherd" (based on the fairy tale by H.C. Andersen) and "Heaven and Hell" (based on the short story by P. Merime).

One day, doctors Speransky and Nikulin made an outstanding scientific discovery: they discovered the bacillus of indifference and ignorance. To describe its action, one of them selflessly instills it in himself.

A long time ago a splendid deer with golden antlers lived in the woods, always protecting the poor and weak and disdaining evil. In a little village nearby the woods widow Yevdokya lived with her twin daughters Mashenka and Dashenka, her son and her old father. One day the girls observe robbers hunting the deer. Shortly after they are lured into the woods by forest spirits. Infuriated about their presence, witch Baba Yaga turns them into fawns. Meanwhile, Yevdokya searches for her daughters. For protecting the deer of robbers she gets a magical ring to protect her from danger. The deer advises her to set off to the red sun or the clear moon. But both cannot reach the magic woods with their light. Finally, the boy accompanied by his cat goes in search for sisters and mother.

Fifth-grade students, misbehaving during an air-raid drill, smash a cabinet in the physics lab. Lev Prokushev, one of the perpetrators, takes a microscope eyepiece, which is soon discovered in Arkady Zubov's school bag. Arkady categorically denies any involvement in the mischief but refuses to name the culprit.

An old soldier helps a young boy find his mother, who's been kidnapped to the magical underwater kingdom in a remote Russian lake.