Young Chechnya war veteran alienates himself from his friends and family because of his burned face. When he has to help find his war-time friend, he manages to get back to life again.
Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov plans to buy the titles to “dead souls” and use them as collateral to obtain a large loan. He comes to a small provincial town and begins to proposition the local landowners. These landowners are revealed to be so petty and avaricious that not even Chichikov’s amazing offer can be worked to his advantage on them. Some stall, some refuse for no obvious reasons, some promise and then renege, and others want “in on the deal.” In the end, Chichikov, having concluded that the landowners are a hopeless lot, leaves for other regions.
Two parents put their child in his crib for the night and leave the room. The child starts crying, and the Cat comes into the room to keep him company. The child grabs her tail, and the Cat angrily reminds him that they agreed a thousand years ago that he would not do that. Upon seeing that the child doesn't remember, the Cat sighs and decides to tell him the story from the beginning. The story starts when the planet was young and life on Earth is starting with dinosaurs.
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.
This melodrama revolves around the post-war meeting reunion an intelligent front-line officer, now happily married, and a woman street vendor. This encounter reawakens in them submerged feelings of gratitude and tenderness as the officer recalls how they met during the war and what she used to mean to him. Now he learns that she is alone with a small daughter, the girl's father having been killed at the front.
Screen adaptation of the play by Maxim Gorky "Vassa Zheleznova".
Saga of the death of a merchant family. For many years, Vassa Zheleznova has been leading the family business and, despite the inconspicuous children, her dissolute husband, alcoholic brother, and revolutionary daughter-in-law, is trying to maintain at least the appearance of a normal family... 1913 is coming, and everything that was dedicated to her life is wrecked.
In a small provincial town, a famous actress comes on tour, who once fled from here from the shame of unhappy love. Many years ago, she was forced to leave her illegitimate son to raise strangers. Therefore, when a talented and reckless young actor appears on the way of a now rich and famous woman, she certainly wants to help him. The actress begins to take an active part in the fate of the young man.
The social ferment in late 19th century Russia which led to the 1917 Russian Revolution is movingly portrayed in this lengthy historical drama, which is very faithful to the 1907 novel The Mother by the celebrated Marxist writer Maxim Gorky (1868-1936). In the story, "the mother" (Inna Tchourikova) has no other recourse than to watch her decent, kindly husband turn into an animalistic, drunken brute as a result of working in the inhuman conditions of a steel mill in the town of Sormovo. When he begins to express his suppressed rage by beating her, she is defended by her teenaged son Pavel (depicted Viktor Rakov as an adult, Sacha Chichonok as a boy). After his father's death, Pavel is forced to go to work in the same factory. However, Pavel and his friends begin investigating Marxism and socialist thought, and work to organize their fellow workers.
The mayor of a village sees her son killed in a gun accident. A successful, dedicated bureuacrat, she must reconcile her desire to build a bridge - and the new housing that will come with it - with the reality of resistance from the townspeople and her own grief.