In Petersburg during perestroika there are two people, Alya and Nika. She is a little funny Petersburg intellectual; he is a French architect. They cannot live without each other, but they cannot together, either in the ancient Lyon castle, or in her communal apartment inhabited by colorful neighbors. Next to Alya is her childhood friend - Mitya, whose love she does not notice. He uses Ali's ridiculous mistake and Niki's jealousy to separate them for years.
The film is about the life and death of the outstanding playwright Alexander Vampilov. Life and death, which reflected the era. The two most important meanings are connected in this story. The fate of a simple provincial man who chooses the path of the artist and the love of their native places.
A young couple Yulia and Vlad go to spend some quiet days on an island. Vlad is in his early thirties. He is kind and caring with Yulia. She suffers from a psychological trauma and partial memory loss. Complete isolation makes the young couple happy during first days, however, very soon the girl notices some strange behavior of her boyfriend. Terrifying hallucinations and memories that she cannot explain overwhelm her. Her trials to bring back her memory and find out the truth turn into struggle for life.
After the death of the mother of twelve Kohl sent to an orphanage. Valentine is taking him from there. This lonely old woman is his dear aunt, with whom he had never been acquainted. Kohl is waiting for his older brother to come after him after his release from prison, and they will return home together.
Olga, Katya, and Andrey have known each other since childhood. They moved to Moscow many years ago and have become successful. Olga is an actress, Katya works for a large-scale PR agency, and Andrey is a political analyst. They buy cars, take mortgages, build country houses. Just like everybody else. But their lives bring them neither happiness nor content. The feeling of "something's not right but I can't put my finger on it" underpins the lives of today's thirty-year-olds. Their childhood took place during the Soviet era, when kids dreamed of becoming heroes, believed in spy stories and a bright future. Yet nobody expected that the dream of becoming a hero would be replaced by the dream of stable and predictable existence. People have stopped dreaming of truly grand things. They just play their roles.
