Monday Begins on Saturday

Genre:  Comedy, Sitcom

Episodes:  24 episodes in a season

Enough complaining!  Stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something!  These ideas counteract pessimism.  To elucidate these notions in vibrant and exciting TV, we decided to adapt the enduring Strugatsky brothers’ classic about people who believe that 'Monday begins on Saturday'.

During a trip that he had won in a lottery, programmer Alexander Privalov finds himself in the suburbs of Solovets, where he was planning to meet other members of a group who were going on a journey up the river.  However, when he meets the doubles of Amperyan and Korneev and spends a strange night in a place called Isnakurnosh, Privalov’s curiosity is piqued and he decides to stay (letting his group go ahead) and learn more about a mysterious Scientific Research Institute of Sorcery and Wizardry.  

Privalov meets an expert on the history of ancient Russia, a pretty woman called Olga, whom he falls in love with.  He gets to know the supply manager Kamnoedov, a pedanticbureaucrat; two magicians – the kind Kivrin and the cynical Hunta; a bogus scientist, Vybegallo, and his cute assistant, the impressionable witch, Stellochka, who eventually becomes Korneev’s girlfriend.

Alexander's passion for the unknown unites him with the Institute's workers. He accepts their job offer and becomes a part of the Institute's intense life.  Alexander supervises a powerful Aldan 3 Computer, which later acquires a soul and becomes his grumpy and sarcastic confidant.

As a newbie who's unfamiliar with the Institute's rules and traditions, Privalov keeps finding himself in comic situations.  However, he always resolves things with dignity, humor, and the help of his friends.  Privalov and his pals have romantic affairs and rewarding friendships.  They do a lot of research and become participants in numerous strange and dangerous experiments related to magic on the verge of science or vice versa.   The key task of the Institute is to find the White Thesis, a mysterious element which will bring happiness to mankind.  The search has been going on for six centuries and these efforts have yielded some practical results, such as a magic tablecloth, seven-league boots, and so on.

Privalov never regrets his decision to change his lifestyle and work at the Institute.  He goes from being a newbie, who finds magic surprising, to a respected research worker and a first-rate magician.  At the end of Season 1, Privalov finds the Book of Fortunes and realizes that his trip had been planned in order to get him into the Institute.  He learns that he's an important character vis-à-visthe White Thesis and that his life is in danger.

Olga reveals her secret as well.  Privalov finds out that in the past she was Countess Olga, a powerful sorceress who was more than a thousand years old and who had promised not to practice witchcraft from the 19^th Century onwards.