In Petersburg during perestroika there are two people, Alya and Nika. She is a little funny Petersburg intellectual; he is a French architect. They cannot live without each other, but they cannot together, either in the ancient Lyon castle, or in her communal apartment inhabited by colorful neighbors. Next to Alya is her childhood friend - Mitya, whose love she does not notice. He uses Ali's ridiculous mistake and Niki's jealousy to separate them for years.

Orphan, Oskar lives with Elvis and Fanny Egger, his guardians. Oskar is waiting for one thing, the majority, to finally be able to go to Zimbabwe and start a new life. While Oskar strives to raise money to get there, Elvis takes Oskar's success and makes it cost him to graduate. The balance of power is becoming more and more tense, swinging into a violence that will push Oskar to definitively abandon childhood, and Elvis, to fall the mask of his ambition and his madness.

A gifted 11-year-old boy secretly builds an air balloon with his friend Emma, to prove to his father that everything in life is possible.