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Absent-minded inventor Shurik (Alexander Demyanenko) has built a time machine in his Moscow apartment. Due to the machine's malfunctioning, his apartment complex manager Ivan Vasilievich (Yuri Yakovlev) and a suave burglar (Leonid Kuravlev) are transposed back to the times of Ivan the Terrible, while the dreaded Czar himself (also played by Yakovlev) turns up in modern-day Moscow. Since Ivan Vasilievich and his royal namesake look alike, various funny complications arise, and Shurik desperately tries to return things back to normal. This Soviet sci-fi comedy is loosely based on the play Ivan Vasilievich by Mikhail Bulgakov.