Andrei's ex-girlfriend Tania (Anzhela Belyanskaya) has been constantly in danger of going to jail since he knew her. Their breakup was not his doing, and he is determined to keep her out of jail. Andrei (Oleg Menshikov) has a notion that, if he can raise enough money, he can smuggle her out of Russia into New York, where all will be well. While Andrei's grasp on reality may be tenuous, his ability to maneuver and scheme is unimpaired. He is a student filmmaker, and the kind of money he needs to save Tania with doesn't grow on trees. He begins raising funds by mugging men at public toilets, and graduates to stealing the drug money accumulated by more serious gangsters. After he has raised the money to accomplish his goal, his girl, the light of his life, confesses that she despises him, and then goes out and gets arrested.

Using an elaborate system of denunciation, the chief of the Zone keeps his prisoners in check. A new inmate, allegedly imprisoned for speculating on postage stamps, tries to rebel against the system.

After discovering a time tunnel to 1960-ies a journalist decides to make some cash out of it.

Wartime, summer 1941. Train carrying criminals gets under enemy fire and crashed. Out of all of the living are only a young lieutenant of the NKVD and two prisoners - the thief and repressed Communist party worker.

Bandits kill Sergei in front of his wife and son. The son of the murdered man loses the power of speech. Nadezhda, Sergei's wife, is also unable to bear the blow. The murder of her husband literally stands before her eyes day and night. The militia, as it seems to Nadezhda, acts slowly and ineffectively and she passes the sentence herself and decides to execute it...

In Moscow, the trams have been privatized. “Annushka” is making its final run. The tram driver, Liza, is nervous — her son might be drafted into the army. Boris, a veteran, tries to calm her down. He enjoys riding the tram, striking up candid conversations with strangers.