A photographic fairy tale that borrows the shape, but not the comfort, of Russian folklore: a genre built on the promise that good triumphs over evil, that a falcon's feather can bring back a betrothed, or living and dead water can revive a hero cut to pieces. Andrey Ivanov's tale has neither a happy ending nor, in fact, any ending at all, leaving the viewer to find their own way out of a labyrinth of folkloric layers - hinted at by a cover bearing an X-ray of a Russian matryoshka doll - through a magical forest of enchanted clearings, house spirits and other creatures drawn from nature and folk imagination. The title is itself the classic fairy-tale errand, the impossible task handed to Ivan Tsarevich or Nastenka, and it is the viewer, paging through the book, who becomes the hero sent to complete it.