The beginning of the 2000s. New realities, instant adaptation to the proposed circumstances, enchanting careers, unexpected unknown professions... All this could have happened only at the turn of the century, when the Soviet system instantly went out of fashion, replaced by the lightning invasion of the Western world in a grotesque parody. The main character of the film is an inconspicuous girl Nadezhda Strakhova. Nadezhda, oddly enough, is married. Her husband, Vitalik, a provincial, married a childless Nadezhda for the sake of a Moscow residence permit and a typical "Khrushchev" on the outskirts of Moscow. Nadezhda works two jobs to support her small family: in the mornings in the district library and in the evenings in the theater wardrobe. One day her life changes dramatically.
In the late 1980s, when “perestroika” was taking place in the USSR and the era of the Soviet Union was about to collapse, life became unstable and very different. The 1980s brought not only freedom, but also waves of crime on the city streets. While some young people began to ‘grow up’ on the streets, others found it difficult to find their place in this unpredictable reality. Andrey, lives with his mother and five-year-old sister. He studies at a music school and often encounters street teenagers who harass him. To protect himself, Andrey makes friends with one of these teenagers, Marat, who introduces him to gang life. Youth groups fight for every piece of territory; they defend their right to live the life, even breaking laws and promises. The only thing that matters to them is the vows they make to their gang members-brothers, with whom they confront the violence and fears of the adult world.
The film begins on New Year’s Eve with the preps for the anniversary of a local deputy. Amid the celebration, a rep of the prosecutor’s office comes to the jubilee and hands him a summons. Together with neighbors, relatives, and his beautiful wife, who all felt that the affairs of the local king are now weak, the dishonest regional official finds himself in a whirlpool of events.
December of 1941, Northwestern Front. A German tank column is moving towards Moscow. During a mission to stop the enemy advance, Nikolai Komlev's IL-2 is shot down. Komlev manages to crash-land his plane in a remote forest clearing. He's alive, but far from friendly territory. Ahead of him is a relentless trial of severe physical and mental endurance. After battling hunger and extreme cold, evading packs of wolves and detachments of Nazi soldiers, the wounded Komlev finally makes it back to safety. But there he faces another challenge, the most life-changing of them all.
1984, a small town near Vitebsk. Criminals who have robbed a local store are hiding from the scene in a truck. A traffic police car is chasing them. Soon the company car disappears. The search for the criminals and the traffic police officer begins, but instead of them, the corpse of a girl is found in the forest. The case is entrusted to local police officer Mikhail Shakhnovich, and a specialist from Minsk, Leonid Ipatiev, is sent to help him. He quickly realizes that Vitebsk colleagues are not particularly zealous in their work: the system is based on bribes and fabricated cases. And while Shakhnovich arrests the first ones who come across, the bodies of women continue to be found in the region.
In 1957 French student Pierre Durand comes to Moscow to do an internship at Moscow State University. Here he meets ballerina Kira Galkina and photographer Valera Uspenskiy. With them he discovers the cultural side of Moscow — not just the traditional one, but the underground one as well. During his year in Russia’s capital Pierre lives an entirely different life than what he’s used to. But the internship and the experience of the Soviet people’s way of life are not the only things Pierre is after. He’s searching for his father, White officer Tatishchev, who was arrested in the 1930s.
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