Yury Bykov
The protagonist Vlad is a man of about forty; he lives and works as watchman in an old sanatorium that is due to be demolished. He obviously needs this work to live the life of a hermit. One night a married couple appears at the sanatorium: Vera and Stas. They are on the run. They are pursued by former friends and business partners of Stas. Vlad decides to help them, because he too is hiding from the past. Each character is threatened with the inevitable payment for wrong choices in the past, but helping each other, they try to expiate these faults.
The main character is a cute ambitious girl Rita from a provincial town on the Black Sea coast. She decides to break out of the routine of doing local weddings and matinees and arrives to conquer the capital, trying to enroll in a drama school. She is waiting for a lot of difficult tests, which sometimes turn into very funny stories.
When a factory is bound to close, a group of workers decides to take action against the owner.
Alexey is shooting a movie about himself. He is in search of a boyfriend. Everything would be alright, if Alexey's mother could accept his sexuality. Alexey comes to visit her and admits that he likes boys, saying 'Don't you anticipate any grandchildren from me'. We find Alexey at Tarkovsky film festival, where he apparently came to rest. Alexey meets Grisha, and a stormy holiday romance begins.
Fedya is 20 years old. He works as a projectionist in a provincial cinema called "Rodina" (Motherland), and tries in vain to pull in spectators. When the local authorities decide to transform the "Rodina" into a shop, there is only one way out: to make a successful film and thus rescue the cinema! But what is required to get a good box office? Of course, a star! Desperate times demand desperate measures, so the children kidnap a celebrity from a passing train. And this is not just any star, but Dmitri Diuzhev! Well, maybe he does not exactly burn with the desire to be filmed here, but it doesn't matter as long as they have enough ropes, gags and sleeping tablets. Then here is a desperate producer who has just been demobbed, a philosophizing wedding photographer and the karate-practicing actress Zhenya, with whom Fedya is secretly in love.
100 years ago, the Russian Empire ... Christmas Eve. December plugs, holiday celebrations, balls and modest luxury holidays, titled nobles and ordinary peasants, the royal family and the soldiers of the First World War, progressive poets and the first skaters - everything was different, except ... the holiday. People prepared, lived, believed dreaming and waiting for this miracle - Christmas!
On a cold winter’s day Sergey Sobolev, a major at the local police office, is driving to the hospital where his wife is about to give birth to their child. High from happiness, he’s driving too fast and runs down a boy on a passage walk, who dies. Now the major has only two options: go to prison or conceal the crime. Sobolev decides to compromise with his conscience and calls on a colleague to help him out. But the case turns out to be messy and when Sobolev finally changes his mind and tries to make up for his deed, it’s already too late…
Early autumn, godforsaken Russian countryside. A local hunter Michail witnesses a skirmish in the middle of the forest - three men want to kill the forth, Andrey. Kind-hearted Michail helps Andrey escape and together they run from the villains who chase them. Thus, two totally different men start a long and dangerous journey together, constantly arguing with each other regarding their ideology, morals and opinions about life. But life will put everything on its place and make the men understand who they really are.
