Who Invented the Wheel?

Winter. At a small station where passing trains stop for only one or two minutes, Marushkin, the driver, meets a new agronomist, Lyusya Krechetova, who has arrived from Leningrad. At first, she looks curiously at her new life, which has neither comfort nor basic amenities. But soon this incomprehensible life, where only the truly passionate live and work, begins to annoy her. Unable to withstand the trials of selfless work, Lucy says goodbye to her new friends and returns home...

Nadya Shumin is engaged to be married to Andrey Andreitch, the son of a local priest. Nadya lives on her grandmother's estate with her mother, "a fair-haired woman tightly laced in, with a pince-nez, and diamonds on every finger." While Nadya is a woman with a great desire for education and independence, Andrey is a friendly but rather vacuous and totally unmotivated man. Sasha, an ill and impoverished young man who is spending the summer on the estate has long been considered part of the family. Sasha implores Nadya to follow her heart - to go to Petersburg and attend the University.

Lyuska, an employee of the only savings bank in the very young town of Radiozavodsk, wins a nylon fur coat on a lottery ticket. Her colleagues advise her to get the money and buy something useful. Lyuska goes to the regional capital, receives the money, and decides to spend it on a two-week trip to Moscow.

A young engineer named Zotov has been appointed head of the 406th picket line at the construction of a railway line in the taiga. The construction workers huddled in a smoky, dark dugout did not welcome the new foreman very cordially: not everyone can do hard work and household disorder. But the day came when the builders occupied the house they had built themselves, and Zotov had a double holiday — the bride arrived. And again it's weekdays, and again the cold barracks is full — a new batch of builders has arrived.

A story about three circus actors and their adventures. Based on classic novel by Aleksandr Kuprin.

A finding of an old briefcase in a ruined house in 1970s leads to a treasure, hidden in the 1920s.

The Soviet command has alarming information about the new invention of the enemy. According to intelligence, the Nazis delivered a batch of new chemical shells filled with gas of tremendous destructive power to one of the sections of the Eastern Front. The Nazis want to test them in combat conditions, and then apply them on a large scale.

Follows the director of a large plant, acutely aware of his personal responsibility to society for everything he is involved in.

Late one summer evening, another guest arrives at a cottage on the shore of a beautiful lake, where fishermen usually stay: Pal Palych. Soon, the hostess and all the guests begin to sense that behind his outward charm and empty pleasantries lies an indifferent and very selfish person.

A murder just happened and it seems the answer is simple on who and how did it. But a casual talk between suspect's mother and prosecutor sets a different point of view on a just opened case.

The film takes place in Leningrad and Sverdlovsk, in 1970 and 1979. Arriving on a business trip from Sverdlovsk in the Lenfilm, engineer catapults Sergei Gushchin meets a young actress Natasha. She invites him to show Leningrad, but Gushchin and he knows the city - he served here during the war. They are looking for an excuse for further meetings, but he always finds a reason to not to meet with the woman who is many years younger than him and with whom he has fallen in love with. Natasha understands too that she loves this man, but Gushchin leaves, and not daring to associate with her fate. In the end he leaves and only returns to Leningrad nine years later and then he tries to find Natasha again.

Factory director Kungurtsev returns from a trip abroad and finds out that his longtime and only friend engineer Alexei Putyatin is going to marry Vera, who is very different from everyone's beloved Lipa, Alexei's first wife.

The test pilot of a new fighter gets into an accident and is disabled. The management assigns Evgeny Fetisov to conduct the final ten flights, and thus rejects his request for a long—awaited vacation.…

The film is a monograph about the life and work of the great Russian actor. Actors, theater figures, relatives and friends remember working with him.