In the center of the film is a love story of a modest graduate of the St. Petersburg law faculty evasively answering a question about a job, and a flight attendant from Kaliningrad. The picture is based on the biography of Vladimir Putin.

Valentina Karavayeva had her career ruined when her face was injured in a car crash. Weaving scenes from Russian war classics, Valentina’s personal soliloquies and contemporary footage, director Paradzhanov has created a wonderfully stylish portrait of a quintessential romantic artist.

1947 ... The Savchenko family returns to Moscow from evacuation - husband and wife with Kostya's little son. They settle with Grandma Kostya in a huge communal apartment. Street meets the boy with a flock of local boys. Then there were: the division of the territory with the "Sretensky"; trophy movie “Girl of my dreams”; a school with separate education, camp discipline and essays about the border guard Karatsyup. And the monetary reform of 1947, when all of their savings depreciated in an instant, and the boys let out boats from banknotes in puddles.

The film takes place in a small abandoned monastery, standing on a high, steep bank of the Volga. The hero of the film, the architect, having learned that the empty monastery is facing a thorough reconstruction, decides to capture it alone and prepare design documentation for the restoration of this monument of history and culture. But the monastery turns out to be far from empty. Besides him, a strange old woman also lives in the house. At night, members of the society "Informal Word" gather in the church of the monastery and hold discussions about the historical and spiritual paths of Russia. When drawing up a detailed plan of the monastery, the hero manages to discover hidden voids, similar to the voids of the pyramid of Cheops, and the cell of another mysterious inhabitant of the monastery — Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. The architect witnesses the re-burning of the second volume of "Dead Souls".

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.

In a world after the nuclear apocalypse a scholar helps a small group of children and adults survive, staying with them in the basement of the former museum of history. In his mind he writes letters to his son — though it is obvious that they will never be read.

In this episode, “The Shining World” by Alexander Green and “The Kid” by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky were staged.

Episodes from the life of Molière with scenes from his play, revealing the tragic picture of the confrontation between the great playwright and the authorities.