Vera Kasatkina, in her youth, experienced an emotional trauma: her husband left her and their child. She is 27 years old and has long given up on the idea of personal happiness. When she meets Volodya Chizhov, who is younger than her, she sincerely offers to help him prepare for his university entrance exams. Deep feelings begin to develop between them. Vera's mother is adamantly against this relationship, and Vera's colleagues have already figured it out and are making fun of her. Volodya, an open and persistent young man, tactfully takes the initiative — he helps Vera overcome her fears and find happiness.

Based on the short story of the same name by Anton Chekhov.

A television play from John Steinbeck's novel, performed live for Leningrad Television.

Inspired by the life of Varvara Asenkova, a 19th-century actress who earned great acclaim on St. Petersburg stage before her death at the age of 24.

Saint Petersburg, 1858. A group of composers known as The Five meet at Balakirev's. Young Modest Mussorgsky, both a civil servant and a musician, has become a fixture there. He tells about the first opera he plans to compose. Then he goes to the country where he discovers the lowly conditions of the peasants and the bloody conflicts with the rich land owners. He works on Gogol's 'The Marriage', trying to render into music the natural accents of the play's naturalistic dialogue. But his efforts do not pan out. On the other hand, he starts writing his opera on the story of Boris Godunov. The Marinsky Theatre refuses to stage the work. The Five, and Mussorgsky among them, are libeled and the group starts disintegrating. When 'Boris Godunov' is finally performed in 1874, it is a popular success.

According to Fyodor Protasov, the surrounding life is riddled with dirt and falsehood. He does not want to participate "in all this dirty trick", he does not have the courage to fight it, and he chooses the third way — to stage suicide.

Military doctor Vladimir Ustimenko is a man of duty and honor, committed to the cause he serves, and one single love that he carries through his whole life: Varvara Stepanova is a whimsical girl who dreamed of becoming a great actress but eventually became a geologist. The war will cruelly interfere in the fate of the heroes and confuse their relationship even more.

Five sad and funny romantic stories about love...

Woven around the daily lives of two children, nine-year-old Nastenka and five-year-old Katia, this is a story of the 17 months' siege of Leningrad and of the people and families shattered by the war, their homes bombed and destroyed, their lives in a constant anticipation of the advancing German army and air raids.

Having worked at a construction site all her life, Zina raised her son alone. Now that her son is almost an adult, Victor has appeared in her life, with whom she feels good and calm. However, her son Boris is too much used to having his mother belong only to him.