Set around the Volga river, the story begins around 1900, when Russian peasants are let free and allowed to own their farmlands. But soon they suffer from losses during the 1917 Russian Revolution and the following Civil War. Then, the major national catastrophe is started by Stalin: his communist government kills millions of farmers and steals all their food supplies, causing the longest and deadliest famine all over central Russia during the 1920s and 1930s.

The character of “Die Fledermaus”, Count Eisenstein, is quietly aging on his family estate. Every year he celebrates the birthday of Johann Strauss with great pomp. This time a luxurious ball will be given in honor of the great composer. Rumors are spreading that the great maestro himself will appear here, but incognito.

Forester Yuri Savushkin has been protecting nature and animals for several years now. But “seekers” of zoological rarities (junior children, a scientist from America, an academic zoologist) burst into his usual, measured life, because it turns out that Glazyuk’s animal lives in the Ugryumovsky Nature Reserve...

After four years, a young freight forwarder Sizuhin suddenly learns that under the guise of shipments of baby food his firm is involved in drug smuggling. Deciding to understand this case, he begins to fight the mafia and seeks help from a professional thief named "Varyoniy".

It shows the life of a man who lost his memory after a car accident. It's like a person is being reborn. But the new life does not bring happiness to the hero. Well-mannered, with good manners, he asks his friend, "What kind of person was I?" And gets an answer: "You were a heavy drinker." All the hero's attempts to establish contact with the world around him end in failure, and the final scene is very dramatic.