Loved, but I'm a huge Baba Yaga fan, and this story depicted her quite well. I'm not really sure it did much else all that well, but it didn't need to - it had Bab Yaga! With the house, and the skull fence, and the ridiculous and wonderful mortar and pestle.
And Baba Yaga isn't evil. She's a force of nature, and she's an elder, and she's to be respected. If you don't follow all the forms and politeness, she'll probably eat you. It's what she does. But she's not exactly a villain - she doesn't want to take over Russia or anything. A lot of stories she's in are like this one starts - some hero needs some item or secret from her, and has to outsmart her (while being polite!) in order to get it. Usually it ends up better for the hero than it did this time...
I liked Vlad's becoming undead via both the waters of life and of death... but the whole vampire blood and sunlight things just seemed to come from nowhere. It only worked because we already know all about vampires.
Was the blue flower an invention for this story, or is it from folklore somewhere? Either way it was neat.