Mikhail Vasilyevich Krechinsky, an avid gambler and cardsharp, loses a large sum of money. Creditors are closing in on him from all sides. The only way out is to marry a rich girl. To get his father's blessing and speed up the wedding, Krechinsky resorts to deception.

An interesting voyage through the Soviet television and film industry.

Film-play based on the novel of the same name by A.I. Herzen.

The cafe is almost empty. A customer tries in vain to choose a meal to his liking. The barmaid and two waitresses are discussing a recent radio program in which a retired waiter talks about the plight of his colleagues in the old days. The customer is nervous: borscht is impossible to eat, crayfish is already peckless, milk is sour, beer is warm.... The disappointed customer, leaving, says that he was the one who spoke on the radio. The waitresses apologize: they thought it was an ordinary customer, but now they will serve him in no time. The man refuses and in a peculiar way - by verse and personal example - gives a lesson in cultural service.

November 1941. One by one, the men leave, leaving only old men, women and children in the village of Bykovka. Ivan Vybornov, the chairman of the collective farm, is also raring to go to the front, but, obeying party discipline, remains in the village and continues to skillfully and energetically lead the collective farm, mobilizing fellow villagers to send bread for the front and starving cities.

A story based on a classic play by Alexander Ostrovsky. The famous actress Kruchinina graciously agrees to tour in a town with which she has heavy memories, and finds there a son, left by her due to circumstances many years ago. He has become embittered from his hard childhood, youth and young adulthood an insignificant and drinking like everyone else, an actor in the local provincial theater.

Based on an opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, which was based on a Russian epic tale of the same name. In the old Russian city of Novgorod, the merchants are feasting in a gorgeous palace and Sadko is bragging that he can bring to their land a sweet-voiced bird of happiness. They laugh at him, but he is offered help by the Ocean King's daughter, who is mesmerized by Sadko's singing and is in love with him. The hero is destined to visit many lands in his search of the bird.