About 20 years after I have read this book first, I read the similar book - this was an documentary US book - Stever Levy. The hacheks. The later book is (among others themes) about MIT hackers of 60th.
This was the same time and the same environent. Surprisingly - no significant differences beetwen US and Russian institutes.
That said, this one is not. In fact, it is different from most of what the Strugatskys have written--so light and funny it is. Granted, it will read better if you have a rudimentary knowledge of Russian mytholody and fairy-tales (for instance, the references to the amnesiac cat who cannot manage to tell a fairy-tale, nor sing a song; the talking fish; the Witch Naina Gorynishna are all uniquely Russiasn), but as it features Merlin, a magician by the name of Christobal Junta, a magic sofa, witches-secretaries and man-eating cadavers, it will probably appeal to all lovers of fantasy, no matter their origins.