Kashtanov, professor of medicine and famous Moscow surgeon, is experiencing midlife crisis. Suddenly he decides to leave everything and escape to the countryside in order to spend some time with old friends.
Kostya and David are childhood friends, but as adults they are destined to test their friendship. David plans to propose marriage to his beloved Anna and Kostya hopes to reach the International Poker Championship Finals. Two seemingly unrelated events will become decisive in the lives of these friends: David has to win at poker, and Kostya has to save David's wedding. Can the two friends successfully swap places?
Ivan Mirosnikov, a cheeky young man in the Gorbachev era, is trying to figure out what to do with his life (he's not in college, and the 2-year mandatory military service is looming large ahead of him). Meanwhile, he lives with his divorced mother, and works as a courier at a Russian newspaper. Through his job, he meets patronizing Professor Kuznetzov and his rebellious daughter Katya. To annoy the professor, Ivan claims to have an affair with Katya. To his surprise, Katya backs his story up.
A talented girl from the provincial Russian town Pasha Stroganova dreams of becoming an actress. She plays the role of baba Yaga in the amateur theatre - and does it so organically that the visiting filmmaker offers her the most difficult role in the historical drama about Joan of Arc. She was given not only great acting talent, but the talent of deep, selfless love. A dream comes true: she is invited to the main role, and she begins a completely different life, full of real creative torment, insights and true happiness.
In December 1825, distinguished members of the Russian military, most of whom were quite affluent and of noble lineage, took it upon themselves to stir revolution against the autocratic and tyrannical Czar Nikolai I in the wake of his not honoring the drafting of a constitution for the Russian people. The revolution failed miserably and the conspirators (known as the Decembrists) were weeded out by the czar himself. One by one, each of the conspirators confess and are systematically exiled to the harsh winters of Siberia, slated to work and wither in a prison/mine. The wives of the conspirators are faced with the prospect of leaving the bosom of wealth and family (including their own children) to be with their husbands in the brutal Siberian locale. If they agree to this, they face having their illustrious social stations stripped away and certain disdain from everyone around them...
A zealous young journalist in the 1920s believes only in the Party and thinks love is bourgeois sentimentality - then he meets a pair of pretty girls who want to change his mind.
The actor of the provincial puppet theater comes to try his luck in Leningrad. He stops at his longtime friend - an imitation actor and a big joker. Willingly leaving a friend in his apartment for the night, a friend invites a “call girl” for the guest.