TV adaptation gets over 50% of Russian viewers

A TV adaptation of cult novel The Master and Margarita has won over more than 50% of Russian viewers.

55% of Russians over 18 watched the TV series, which follows Satan as he causes trouble in 1930s Moscow. The novel, begun by author Mikhail Bulgakov in 1928, was banned for 16 years until a government-edited copy was released in 1966.

The £2.9 millon TV series was directed by Vladimir Bortko, who says the novel "was like a breath of fresh air in the dead atmosphere of Soviet writing." It includes bizarre scenes such as Moscow women running around in their underwear, Margarita riding a broom around Moscow naked and the devil's black cat sitting on a tram.

Superstitions abounded about the adaptation, with many saying it was "cursed." However, Bortko believes: "All these stories of a curse are absurd. The novel had never been filmed for banal reasons - in the Soviet Union it was ideology, and once the regime collapsed, there was no money."