The Night Before Christmas

"Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka" became the first major work of Nikolai Gogol (1809 - 1852), which brought him true fame and success. Eight stories, in which mysticism easily coexists with reality, and comedy - with horror tales, immediately won the love of the metropolitan audience, including Pushkin himself. Gogol's colorful characters, folklore and dialects, appetizing descriptions of local cuisine - all of this formed the classic image of Little Russia, so well known to everyone since school days. In the most New Year story of the collection "The Night Before Christmas," the blacksmith Vakula, trying to win the heart of the inaccessible Oksana, sets off to St. Petersburg riding on the devil to obtain the tsar's slippers.