About the title
Vasily Kirsanov is a former bank clerk turned unsuccessful illusionist, dreaming of putting on a show "almost like Copperfield's." For the sake of his stage career, he persuades his wife Svetlana to sell their spacious apartment and move with their two children into a cramped one-room flat. The show flops, and the new apartment is impossible to live in. In a desperate search for a solution, Kirsanov finds a suspiciously good deal and spends his last money on a spacious three-room apartment. Except it turns out the apartment isn't empty — a genuine ghost lives there.