In a nostalgic Moscow of 1976, an unlucky actor meets a charismatic writer, a living classic of Soviet literature, who turns his life into a tragicomic farce with the artistic bohemia, foreign-currency prostitutes, the KGB staff and agents of the CIA.
A horrific car accident turns a married couple's lives upside down. Artist Maria's husband, businessman Kirill, becomes disturbingly perfect. Is he repenting his mistakes and trying to make up for what he almost lost forever, or is it all a figment of Maria's injured imagination? A series of increasingly strange coincidences and signs suggest that Maria can no longer trust herself.
1945. Of all the men from the village of Maslyanino who went to the front, only five of Maria's sons return. Why did fate choose them and how did the mother survive the war years, to whom the women of the village, at the instigation of the village shop saleswoman Vera, had attributed black magic since before the war, calling her a witch?
