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What a fun read. Now How the hell am I going to get my hands on the rest of the books from this series in English... Younger Me You Fool, Why didn't you pay attention in Russian classes back in high school!?

Anyway, regrets aside, to the review. The book comprises three humorous short stories featuring Soviet Scientists/Wizards working at NITWITT (National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy) and their daily troubles. By the style it's like the wizards from The Unseen University but written almost 20 years before Pratchett's Discworld series and dealing with typical Soviet (and basically any variation of a socialist regime) bureaucracy, inept administration, a dishonest, show-horse professor, and equipment failures. Not to mention fairy tales gone wrong: Baba Yagas property belonging to the state and waiting for compensation, the wish granting Gold Fish died from a depth charge in WWII, the wish granting trout exhausted from giving televisions and radios to the people, the all knowing cat suffering from dementia and many many more.

The characters are almost all scientists working at the institute trying to figure out happiness, meaning of life and solve mathematically proven unsolvable problems, while arguing, debating and trying to survive their other colleagues. And who knew that Merlin was a staunch Communist before Karl Marx.

And finally the brilliant title Monday Starts on a Saturday that reflects the authors ideal of a proper scientist.