In an effort to conceal the embezzlement of large sums of money received from the presidential fund, the corrupt and mired in the most low-grade debauchery, the Governor of the City starts a grandiose scam called the "Martian Expedition". The vacancies of voluntary suicides are readily accepted by an artist, director, architect, choreographer and porn star. Meanwhile, the "shadow administration" of the City, consisting of the bosses of the largest gangster groups, is joining the division of the "financial cake"...

As the revolutionary democrats begin to rise in Russia, different ideologies begin to collide. Dostoyevsky casts a critical eye on both the radical idealists, portraying their ideas and ideological foundation as demonic, and the conservative establishment's ineptitude in dealing with those ideas and their social consequences.

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.