Srubov is a part of CHEKA, the secret police Lenin established after the Bolshevik Revolution. They arrest, interview for a minute, try in ten seconds, and execute intellectuals, aristocrats, Jews, clergy, and their families. In the building basement, five people at a time are shot as they stand naked facing wooden doors. No one to remember their last words; no martyrs, just anonymous bodies. Daily, the kangaroo court, the executions, the loading of bodies onto wagons. Srubov is cold, distant, sexually dysfunctional, and a deep thinker, hated by former friends and his family. As he tries to reason the nature of revolution and the purpose of CHEKA, he slowly goes mad.

It is the future, the world is in ruins and a large portion of the population consists of deformed mutants living in reservations. In this world a man decides to spend his vacation visiting the ruins of a museum that is now buried under the sea.

Investigating the murder of a resident of the suburbs Louis Touré, Maigret faces the indifference and cruelty of the people surrounding Louis in recent years. The diagnosis and the verdict — all guilty.

Elecampane is a healing root like ginseng. According to Kuban belief, dug out in the forest on New Year's Eve, it cures any disease. Children from the Kuban village of Black Erik learn about Lenin’s illness and decide to help him.