Vyacheslav Pietsukh (1946), a historian by training, feels at home in the intricate labyrinths of the Russian past as if he were in his own apartment. But not always in a house, no matter how we inhabit it, we are given the opportunity to guess the architect’s plan. So in the old days, no matter how you look at them, the mysteries of the Russian people still remain unsolved. And it always turns out that no matter what path to progress you take, it will still turn out to be special, and again we are destined to teach a lesson to all peoples except ourselves. Apparently, the point here is in the peculiarities of our national character - this is what the writer explores. V. Pietsukh, and with him his readers, are saved from hopeless melancholy and despair by an excellent sense of humor and faith in the same Russian character. The story “Night Vigils with Johann Wolfgang Goethe” was included in the author’s collection of V. Pietsukh “State Child”, published in 1997.