Eleven-year-old Tanya is going out of her mind with boredom. What use is a sunny beach if she has to take care of her little brother Boris all the time? But then, while diving, she finds an old, stone-encrusted tankard. She tries to open it – and suddenly a strange little man creeps out of the bushes. His trousers are tucked into top boots, his shirt is covered in lace, and he is sporting a moustache almost as long as the braid of hair on his head. The little man chases after Tanya, explaining that they have an 'astral connection' and that, unfortunately, he must now fulfil her every wish, for she has broken the tankard in which he has been imprisoned for the last three hundred years. At first Tanya thinks that the man is crazy, but then she remembers a fairy tale and a cartoon film in which a spirit fulfils wishes. Are you some sort of genie? she asks the old man. A genie?!! I am a magician, he replies indignantly. A magician, I tell you – and a great magician at that!