This film was Sokurov's first feature at Lenfilm, roughly based on a short story by the contemporary Soviet writer Grigory Baklanov about the transitional period from power to subordinance.

A young doctor Nikolai Alexandrovich Zaostrovtsev, a fourth generation medical professional, found himself in the Gladuny village directly after the Institute. Neither he himself, nor his father, a town surgeon, expected that he would linger long their. But having become a real doctor in this working village community, he remains true to his profession without any dreams of glory or city life…

Their first night is a chain of random coincidences. However, some time later, she shows up at his office under a different name and a suspiciously clean biography. And this seems to be no coincidence.

On the legal and moral education of youth.

Dmitry Nikolaevich Rudin appears at the estate of the wealthy lady Daria Mikhailovna Lasunskaya. A meeting with him becomes an event that attracts the most interested attention of the inhabitants and guests of the estate...

The task force under the command of Major Oleg Sorokin is facing a dangerous and many-sided enemy. Criminal authorities from Rostov-on-Don seek to expand their circle of influence to St. Petersburg and take control of a large pharmaceutical plant. However, in the course of the investigation, a no less formidable, but much more insidious “third force”, interested in the seizure of the plant, suddenly appears.

A hospital nurse becomes an "international girl" — a prostitute who caters to foreigners with hard currency.

On the disclosure by the criminal investigation department of a crime that occurred in 1947.