The film tells the story of Olga Sergeevna, a renowned oceanographer. Throughout her life, Olga Sergeevna loved only one man, with whom she was never destined to find happiness.

A retired air force colonel comes on summer vacation to the Crimea. He comes as a non-official holiday-maker, so the main problem is to find night quarters. There is a brim-full of holiday-makers here at holyday season, and for locals the main business is to rent a bunk. And if one also manages to make money on sending pears, apples, grapes, the whole winter will be supported. Thus many locals survive, others become callous, cynical cold fish, concerned only about gains. Anna Ivanovna, the flat owner, renting a bunk to the colonel, starts reminding of the latter. Looking over a photo in a hall, the colonel suddenly recognizes himself in youth with a friend, who died of consumption and who turned out to be the Annas son.

In the apartment of Anna, who, judging by her testimony to the investigation, was on a business trip, a fire broke out at night. The son was saved, but as a result of a nervous shock he was speechless. The investigation, the mother and father of the child will find out the true cause of the tragedy.

Mrs. Dulska, the landlady of a tenement building, is obsessed with her son, going to great lengths to prevent him from getting married.

A biologist, obsessed with the idea of writing a treatise on a new kind of mouse, becomes witness to a number of bizarre and horrific events, from his son's suicide, to the S&M engaged in by respectable middle-aged men, to his own family's psychic morbidity.

After Monsieur Lenoir commits a terrible crime, his family members gather together to discuss their damage control options.

The shortcomings of the era of stagnation are criticized in a grotesque manner - it takes place at a train station and on a train.

A mountain Daghestani village of our time. Though the civilization reached these places, but traditions and customs consolidated their grip on local folks minds. An old respectable mountain-dweller, a well-educated person in looks, the Palace of Culture director, a father of the young girl, who if ready for marriage, is no exception. According to the old custom a womans parents have to find a well-off groom and get bride-money. And they have an appropriate groom a respected mechanical engineer from a canning plant. But the girl destroys all their harmonious plans, falling in love with a simple driver.

A tragical story of love between two young people during WWII.