Monday Begins on Saturday

The story follows Alexander Privalov, a young computer programmer who, while driving home from a vacation in Karelia, gives a ride to two hitchhikers and ends up staying at the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy (NIITChAVO) in the fictional town of Solovets. There he discovers a research institute where sorcerers, folkloric creatures, and Soviet bureaucracy coexist, and scientists approach magic with the same rigor and administrative red tape as any other branch of science.

The novel combines folklore, absurdist humor, and a parody of Soviet scientific institutions and academic life.