Sisin, a forty-year-old writer, gets on the train and goes out of town. In the car, he is surrounded by strange passengers, some of whom resemble famous Russian writers: Chekhov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kuprin... Surreal visions, hidden desires, fears, and anxieties arise in Sisin's imagination. Love, career, and life itself seem stupid and meaningless to him.
Military doctor General Klenski is arrested in Stalin's Russia in 1953 during an anti-Semitic political campaign accused of being a participant in so-called "doctors' plot".
O general Ivolgin, o silvicultor Kuzmich e o bem-humorado Lyova se perdem em uma pescaria e acabam em um país vizinho, onde decidem se divertir de qualquer maneira, mas acabam deixando sua vodka e equipamentos de pesca para trás.
A Finn preparing a work on the Russian hunting traditions and customs, comes to Russia to collect materials and is invited to take part in a hunting party. His flamboyant companions include an Army general, with more than a passing resemblance to Aleksander Lebed, a police detective, local forest ranger (a devotee of Zen Buddhism) and some big-city types from St. Petersburg. Inevitably, their good intentions soon give way to endless drinking, visits to local farm girls and much else besides.
This charming comedy tracks the lives of several romantic pairs through trials and tribulations. The main focus of the story is a young soldier with a good heart but little ambition and his fiancée, who feels torn when a charming and sophisticated intellectual enters her life and sweeps her off her feet. There are also several side stories, also all dealing with relationships, most significantly the soldier's mother, whose comfortable but unexceptional marriage is threatened when a past love returns to her life.
