The fairy tale novella by Nobel Prize–winning author Veniamin Kaverin, written in 1981 and first published in the magazine “New World” (1982). It tells of the confrontation between the young boy Vasya and the evil magician Leon Peshcherikov, a modern incarnation of the ancient warrior named Verylioka.
Various fairy-tale, historical, and mythological motifs intersect in the novella, though the very image of Verylioka has little in common with a folkloric Slavic character.
So, the action takes place in the USSR in the 1970s.
Once, by mistake, the passport clerk wrote into the “Children” section of the passport of childless astronomer Platon Platonovich the son of Vasya…