1998, Nalchik. A Jewish family is in trouble: the youngest son and his bride do not come home, and in the morning, a ransom note arrives. The ransom is so high that the family is forced not only to sell its small business, but also to seek help from its fellow tribesmen.

The artists of the front acting brigade are so easy to take. On their side is a creative approach, courage, beauty, dexterity and ... a cello case full of explosives. They are ready for anything to help the front, even sacrifice themselves. The only thing the young playwright Leonid Kruchinin is not ready to give up is his love for the unearthly Lara Vishnevskaya, the star of the Soviet screen. To save her life, he is ready to rewrite his best novel over and over again. A novel about love, war, a front-line acting brigade, and sabotage inconceivable by the audacity of sabotage.

Yasha recently retired after serving many years at a factory, with a highlight of his career being a delegate of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1976. Yet his future is left unknown when he emerges in new realities that he finds difficult to accept. The world has changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, yet he tries to hold on to what once was. Thus enters former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Appearing like Yasha’s alter ego, he guides Yasha, giving amusing commentary and voicing what Yasha should say or do. Brezhnev’s presence gives way for more historical leaders that Yasha idolises to arrive. Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, Josip Broz Tito and Erich Honecker, and even the African dictator Jean Bedel-Bokassa all make an appearance! When Yasha takes an oath of loyalty to them, this creates trouble for his family.

Seventeen-year-old Georgian Dato and his grandmother try to find common ground in the ruins of their once large family. Everything is going according to plan until Dato's mother suddenly appears on the doorstep after many years of absence.