Daniel Berger inventively and seamlessly weaves together local myths from various regions of the collapsed Soviet empire – from Siberia through the country’s South and North, to his native Kyrgyzstan – as he tells stories of pivotal moments in the twentieth century from the perspective of mythical creatures. Along with familiar ghouls, mermaids, forest sprites, and house elves, the stories’ inventive bestiary includes creatures endemic to specific regions. We read of Bashkir shulikuns (small demons who plague humans, often with evil tricks), Kyrgyz Albartsy (an evil mountain creature resembling Big Foot), and even an invented ethnic group, the Erlyas and their warlocks, who marry trees in order to give birth to their common offspring.

These mythological creatures are all part of Soviet and post-Soviet reality and are firmly integrated into the daily routines of humans. Some creatures choose not to interact with people, serving as silent witnesses to the flow of time. Others prefer to adapt in society, as they find professional occupations in tune with their natural gifts.

The elderly evil spirit Albartsy works in a regional natural science museum. By day, he’s a museum exhibit, pretending to be a Pithecanthropus, but by night, he works as a janitor and a guard, dreaming of a well-deserved pension. When refused by the museum’s director, Albartsy hires a pair of elderly cemetery ghouls to threaten the director into granting him a leave and a proper severance package. Meanwhile, the starved ghouls have their own plans for the chubby director (Albartsy).

The story Ene and Soho is set in the Volga region, where Berger places two invented ethnic groups – Erlyas and Shulges. In fine and colorful details, the author depicts their history, cosmogony, traditions, and rituals. What’s more, the author coins a language for the Erlyas, based on Hungarian and Chuvash languages. Severpi, a young woman from town and a hereditary Erlya witch, comes to her native village for her grandfather’s funeral. As a girl who’s become accustomed to city life in the late 1990s, Severpi knows little of her people’s beliefs. But when the funeral ceremony goes wrong, she appeals to the village’s female elders for help. They remind her of Ene and Soho, the ancient patrons of their kin, and guide the young woman to the adjacent wood, which seems to be rooted into village life in ways Severpi would never have imagined. What begins as a duty turns into a scary but rewarding journey in search of her true self and a true love (Ene and Soho).

Mimosa, a once-immortal Siren, runs a school canteen in a Caucus village and grieves for her youth, when she reigned together with her sister, enchanting kings, and the bravest warriors, invading new lands and demolishing empires… Until the day her sister bears a son, and their divine powers begin to dissipate (Good Night, Mimosa).

The devilishly attractive demon Strekopytov, a brilliant farm manager and procurer thanks to his irresistible magnetism, suffers from his unrequited love for a young farmer girl (Strekopytov).

A devoted house elf is forced to leave his home together with his “host” family, after being deported to the far north in the early 1930s as part of dekulakization. Thanks to him, the family survives an ice-cold winter at a labor camp. They become the first residents of Soviet settlements in the Sakha region (Khonzia).

Senia, a young shulikun (a small but mighty devil from Bashkir lore), is drafted into the Red Army, and fights along with his kin in Moscow and Siberia, but dreams only of returning home to his native Bashkiria and marrying his beloved. To approach an angel is severely painful for shulikuns, yet Senia pleads to a passing angel to send his love to his girl while he is away. The angel fulfills the request though he knows that Senia will not return home from this war (Shulikuns).

An old forest sprite decides to go against his own rules of not engaging with humans. Fighting the instinct to go into hibernation, the old sprite takes children from their Belarus village, which Nazi troops demolished in their persecutions of partisans, and brings them to a new family. He loses his magic powers when leaving his home forest, but he is prepared to face all hardships of war along with the children, in what will become his last journey (The Forest Children).

Darkly humorous, moving, and often eerie, Berger’s book is more than simply a patchwork mythological bestiary from different regions of the former Soviet Union. The intricate blend of myth and reality gives a unique perspective to the historical narrative. In Berger’s universe, these mythological creatures change neither history nor human nature. Their magical interactions, though, display the best and the worst in people, ultimately forcing them to look deep into their hearts, often make illuminating discoveries.