When was Yeshua Ha-Notsri executed in Bulgakov's novel? When does the Moscow scenes of The Master and Margarita take place? It turns out that everything is planned by the writer down to the year, day and hour. Which novel characters were based on Lenin, Stalin, and Bukharin? Which of Bulgakov's contemporary writers are depicted on the pages of the novel, and how are the facts of Bulgakov's biography of Pontius Pilate reflected in the text? How was the history of early Christianity and Freemasonry refracted in the novel? Why did Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz die? How were the ideas of Russian religious philosophers of the early 20th century reflected in the structure of the novel? And finally, how does the magic of numbers contained in a work affect us? The reader will find answers to these and other questions in the new book by the famous researcher of creativity Mikhail Bulgakov, Doctor of Philology Boris Sokolov.