Viktor Markin

Moscow, 1952, mid-October, the XIX Congress of the CPSU had just ended. A communal apartment on Bolshaya Pirogovka. In one of the rooms lives the Petkevich family: Ariadna with her husband Boris and her parents, professor of philosophy Peter Kazimirovich and his wife Angelina Fyodorovna. For those few months that remained until Stalin's death, the family experiences a series of dramatic events. But on a background of terrible time, antisemitism, fabricated "case of doctors", denunciations and snitches, there are people who live their lives without losing dignity.

Sasha, Pasha and Lesha meet at a therapy course for men traumatized by women. Yes, there are some, because in the world of strong women, many men have lost themselves. But our heroes do not want to be victims, they decide to "go on the warpath" and restore justice. One problem - they are still slobs.

After the unsuccessful attempt on the life of Baron Wrangel and the death of an intelligence agent, a new cunning plan is being developed to implement the "Crimean Mission". The best agent, Elena Golubovskaya, is appointed to this case. In Crimea, Golubovskaya appears already as El Ferrari - a gifted Italian poet. Her task is to eliminate Wrangel in order to demoralize the white movement, as well as control the operation to steal gold. Her plans are thwarted by Maximilian Ermler, a local newspaper journalist who turns out to be a British intelligence agent.

About how the naive artist Semyon Okhapkin faced the provincial police and local authorities, with the mores of the modern metropolitan crowd, with momentary fame, greedy gallery owners and "big" money.