O blessed city, sung by Scheherazade! Tall minarets, the singing of muezzins calling the faithful to evening prayer… And now bright stars blaze in the velvety purple sky. The intoxicating scent of night, the trembling of plane tree leaves. The pounding of Arabian steeds—stern guards hurry to their barracks. And finally, the monotonous tapping of the clapper and the soothing voice: “Sleep, people of Baghdad, all is calm! In Baghdad everything is… se—” Alas! Vay me! For several days, the wise ruler of the city, Selim ibn Harun al-Rashid, has known no rest or sleep. Vay dod! His faithful servant, the noble gentleman Shehmet, searches every alley and backstreet, looking for a thief of Baghdad named Lev Obolensky!
In short, it wasn’t without mysterious magical forces here…
One day, the great rubai writer Khayyam ibn Omar got bored and decided to drown his тоска by pouring the contents of an ancient jug—out of which appeared at once a very black and very cheerful djinn. In a fit of joy, the spirit promised to grant him three wishes. The old fighter for justice, Khayyam, had long dreamed of a worthy successor. But since the djinn was drunk—and meaning, as they say, “completely smashed drunk”—our blue-eyed hero, a Muscovite of the new millennium, a hereditary nobleman from… medieval East…