Olga Voznesenskaya is a silent screen star whose pictures are so popular that underground revolutionaries risk capture to see them. She's in southern Russia filming a tear-jerker as the Bolsheviks get closer to Moscow. Although married, she spends time every day with Victor Pototsky, the film's cameraman. Gradually, it comes to light that Victor uses his job as a cover for filming White atrocities and Red heroism: he's a Bolshevik. He asks her for help, and she discovers meaning in her otherwise flighty and self-centred life. Love blooms. Will the Red forces arrive in time to save them from a suspicious White military leader? Will she find courage?
The central character of the play, Fedor Protasov, is tormented by the belief that his wife Liza has never really chosen between him and the more conventional Victor Karenin, a rival for her hand. He wants to kill himself, but doesn't have the nerve. Running away from his life, he first falls in with Gypsies, and into a sexual relationship with a Gypsy singer, Masha. Meanwhile, his wife, presuming him dead, has married the other man.
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.
Platon Ryabinin, a pianist, is traveling by train to a distant town of Griboedov to visit his father. He gets off to have lunch during a twenty minute stop at Zastupinsk railway station. He meets Vera, a waitress, after he refuses to pay her for the disgusting food he doesn't even touch and misses his train due to police investigation of the incident. His passport is then accidentally taken away from him by Andrei, Vera's fiancé, and his money is stolen as he waits for the next train to Griboedov. Vera learns that Platon is about to get sentenced and sent to prison in the Far East for a car accident he isn't guilty for. During the few days that Platon has to spend in Zastupinsk he and Vera develop feelings for each other...
An engineer in charge of the production line of a factory in Moscow is sent to a small town to try to specify the distributor the new dimensions of a mechanic part they need. But in this town everybody seems to be crazy (a secretary who works naked, a group of people take the engineer as a rock & roll player, etc) and, in addition, this man is witness of a suicide, so he is trapped inside the town.
In the new Russia, former middle class citizens find themselves out in the dumps. Literally. They build homes, elect their own government, work, beg, scavenge, date and fight all while living in a huge city dump. Some try to beat the odds and return to society, but it seems that there is only one place left for them to go...
The small town agog Hussars entry. Love between cornet and the young actress suddenly faces intrigue made by a St. Petersburg bureaucrat. The actress father dies after being involved in this game and perspectives look dark... But evil will eventually be defeated by the nobility, loyalty and love.
Andrey Pavlovich Buzykin, who makes a living by teaching at an institute and translating English literature, is cheating on his wife. Buzykin's main problem is that he's a kind man with a weak character. The lies he is telling his wife all the time are inconvincing, but he never has the courage to tell her the truth. His lover, Alla, is aware of his family life, but gets offended when, for example, he cannot meet her so that he doesn't come home late, or when he doesn't want to go home in a new jacket she gives him to avoid having to explain to his wife. Alla and Nina, Andrei's wife, both leave him, forgive him, and return to him at the same time, and Andrei continues with this kind of life, full of suffering and deceit. Finally, both women are so fed up with his lies that they don't believe him even when he is telling the truth...
The film takes place in 1951 in a large provincial city. The young wife returns from the resort, and after her comes the “spa card” from the man with whom she somehow walked along the shore, listening to the surf under the starry night sky. A husband receives a postcard ... He does not arrange a scene of jealousy and, experiencing pain inside himself, decides to write him an answer on behalf of Vera.
Following the Russian Civil War, a loyal Red, Shilov, must prove he is at home among strangers as he attempts to recapture a shipment of gold that he was supposed to deliver to Moscow. Needed as a means of buying food for the people, the gold Shilov was entrusted with is stolen, initially by a group of assassins and then by a group of bandits. In tracking the gold’s whereabouts, Shilov’s motives are questioned and he is suspected of treason, in part because his brother was a devoted White. In an effort to clear his name, Shilov locates the gold, but he also discovers rampant greed and corruption.
Ira is Russian. Ivan Tashkov, too. She is 23 years old, lives in Geneva with her mother and knows very little about her homeland. Tashkov is a supposed gangster of the Russian mafia, and is in jail waiting to be judged. Ira, who is searching for her roots and her own path in life, happens to be the interpreter of Tashkov's defense lawyer, and gets instantly captivated by of this powerful, cultured and manipulative man.