Vasily Kirsanov is a former bank clerk turned failed illusionist who dreams of putting on a show "almost like Copperfield's." For the joy of the stage, he persuades his wife Svetlana to sell their spacious apartment and move their two children into a cramped one-room apartment. The show fails, and it's impossible to live in the new apartment. In a desperate search for a solution, Kirsanov finds a suspiciously lucrative ad and buys a spacious three-bedroom apartment with his remaining money. But the apartment turns out not to be empty—a real ghost lives there.
