Yevgeni Zamyatin

After the Great War, which led to the disappearance of almost the entire population of the planet, 200 years have passed. The remnants of humanity live in a perfect One State. Despite the authoritarian system, where each resident has his own serial number, uniform, glass houses and scheduled sex, happiness and harmony reign in society. The D-503 engineer considers such a life ideal and glorifies it, investing all his knowledge and talent in the construction of a super-powerful spacecraft. A chance meeting with an I-330 woman completely reverses D-503's self-image. With genuine horror, he discovers within himself the uncontrollable “ancient” impulses, feelings and passions. And he will have to find out that there are those who do not like the existing world order and who seek to destroy the last bastion of humanity on Earth - the One State ...

In the 26th century the inhabitants of Utopia have so lost their individuality, which varies in number. They live in glass houses (this was written before the invention of television), which allows the political police, called “Keepers” can easily supervise them. They all wear the same uniform and usually turn to each other or as a ”cipher-so” or "UNIFEM" (uniform). They feed on artificial food and rest hour marching in fours in a row the anthem of the One State, pouring out of the loudspeakers. As they are allowed to put a break on the hour (known as the ”sexy time“), draw the curtains of their glass houses. At the head of the One State is one called The Benefactor, which are replaced every year the whole population, usually unanimously. The guiding principle of the State is that happiness and freedom are incompatible.

Inhabitants of a flophouse struggle to survive under the harsh treatment imposed by the landlord, Kostyleva. One resident, young thief Wasska Pepel, ends his affair with the landlord's wife, Vassilissa, and takes up with her sister, Natacha. Pepel also befriends the baron, a former nobleman fallen on hard times, but Pepel's attempts at happiness are complicated when he's accused of murder by a spiteful Vassilissa.

An adaptation of Evgenii Zamiatin’s short story “The Cave,” about a musician dying of hunger in his large, unheated Petersburg apartment because he was not needed in the revolutionary city.