Konstantin, a songwriter and master guitarist, runs away from numerous problems to the nature reserve Mikhailovskoye. Kostya has long lost any way of income and has almost given up hope to be heard, living by sheer inertia and often drawing on alcohol. His wife and daughter are going to Canada, and in his head he constantly turns around the question: what exactly has gone wrong? How can he put it right? Does anyone need his creative work at all, or has he just talked himself into that? Maybe Konstantin has enough energy to change things, but he strongly doubts that: indeed, why and for whom should he try. Nevertheless, the nature reserve is the right place to collect his thoughts, break the minefield of his own life into sections, and get to work.
Dovlatov charts six days in the life of a brilliant, ironic writer who saw far beyond the rigid limits of 70s Soviet Russia. Sergei Dovlatov fought to preserve his own talent and decency with poet and writer Joseph Brodsky, while watching his artist friends got crushed by the iron-willed state machinery.
Everything that matters to Sergey Dovlatov, one way or another written by the writer Sergey Dovlatov. From fragments of works, letters, interviews, editorial columns, a story about a living person is compiled.
The action is set in 1970 as the Soviet Union (and the entire progressive world) are preparing to celebrate Lenin's centenary. Not to be outdone, the camp commander decides to have the prisoners put on a play about Lenin's life. However, the ensuing preparations turn everything upside down and seem to offer a God-given chance to plot an escape.
