Maya, a gynecologist from Moscow, trains the staff at a hospital in a small settlement in the Northern Caucasus. She notices barbaric performances of female circumcision carried out behind her back.

1829: Nikolay Gogol, troubled Third Section clerk, burns his own books. Epileptic seizures plague him. Investigator Yakov Guro discovers Gogol's visions hold crime-solving clues. Together, they tackle a baffling case in Dikanka, where everyone hides a dark secret.

From his childhood in Russia to his last days in California, the tumultuous ininerary and bathed in melancholy of the legendary pianist and composer Serguei Rachmaninov. This film is based on the legend that Rachmaninoff received a bouquet of lilacs from an unknown admirer after every performance. He emigrated to the United States, and after an interval, began to receive the mysterious lilacs again.