Olga Glushko

The plot is not developed; in the film we see a man (he) and a woman (she) who, in fact, are neither connected nor familiar with each other; they casually met in hospital. "She" (Viktoria Tolstoganova) does not see that she is in danger in connection with her plan to use a tape with illegally made recordings as compromising evidence in court. "He" (Il'ia Shakunov, an actor of the Petersburg TYuZ) is a gay translator who, after the random meeting with her, is pursued by her image which frequently pops up in front of him. As a consequence, his relationship with a young boy no longer satisfies him. Both he and she lose sight of the meaning of life, because of their own inability to see others and to see love, as perception relies on proximity instead of distance.

The Old Man, the Bald Man, Lenin and 148 other nicknames are pseudonyms of the hereditary nobleman Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. He is a retarded infant, a thin, red–haired teenager, a young student, a provincial social Democrat, a young lawyer who traded his career for exile to Siberia. He is Lenin, the preacher of the armed struggle against autocracy, the man who organized the supply of weapons and ammunition to Russia, whose slogan is "Fight together, go separately" – it does not matter with whom: with dark people or with the general staffs of the Japanese and German armies. An incredibly able-bodied, passionate orthodox Marxist who paved the way to power with his pragmatism.