Maria Kuznetcova

During the Gorbachev years, Platon Makovski and his four buddies are university students who jump on the private capitalism movement. Fast-forward 20 years, Platon finds himself the richest man in Russia, having sacrificed his friends to get to the top. But with this cynical rise, comes a brutal fall.

They can't see, but they really must... Because they love each other!

For two months a serial killer has been terrorizing the city of St. Petersburg. Every Wednesday a girl between 9 and 12 years old is the victim. The brutality of the maniac plunges city residents into horror. Parents are afraid of leaving their children alone on the street. The press reinforces the atmosphere of fear and hysteria.

Biologist Sergey Losev works as the head of the laboratory at the Research Institute. He has been negotiating with the American Institute for several years, and now he finally receives a long-awaited job offer. But the call comes to Losev with a delay of one and a half months. There are only seven days left before the Board of Trustees, which must approve his candidacy. Sergey calls America and informs them that he will arrive on time. On the eve of leaving for the States, a scientist wants to say goodbye to his parents, and on the way an inattentive lady crashes into his bumper at full speed.

The film follows esteemed gynecologist Pavel Kucotsky as he battles illegal abortions and the 1936 ban amid the political upheavals of mid-20th-century Russia— from Lysenkoism to Stalin’s funeral and the Khrushchev thaw—while public opinion casts him alternately as savior or villain. Interwoven are his wife Elena’s memory loss, their daughter’s turbulent coming-of-age, a Buenos Aires inheritance, and the bohemian jazz scene, all culminating in a saga of personal and national transformation.