Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita" became a must-read long before this expression entered our vocabulary. When it was first published in 1966, a quarter of a century after being written, it was an event in the country's literary life. It was impossible to obtain a copy of the magazine "Moscow" that published it. Of course, there was widespread censorship. But all of it was "reset" by samizdat lists that went public reproducing all excerpts with the sources of cuts indicated. Veniamin Kaverin spoke of "The Master and Margarita" as a work in which "incredible events occur in every chapter." Indeed, Bulgakov placed Satan himself into Bolshevik Moscow, his Master was hounded by critics — adherents of socialist realism, and the heroes of the "novel within the novel" — Yeshua, Levi Matvei, and Pontius Pilate — were certainly not heroes of Bulgakov's time. But all of them march through time — perhaps our era is already looking back, searching for that strange figure at Patriarch's Ponds.