A shell-shocked Afghanistan war hero named Ivan Skryabin (Mikhail Skryabin) spends his days stoking the fire in a giant coal furnace. When he isn’t tending the flames, he keeps busy with other activities. He works on a historical novel. His adult daughter Sasha (Aida Tumutova) comes to visit. Local kids come to gaze at the flames. Gangsters, including a former Army sergeant (Aleksandr Mosin) and a sniper known as Bison (Yuri Matveyev), drop by to add special kindling to the fire.

The end of the 19th century. A tiny colony of lepers in the isolated Yakut taiga. A healthy girl, brought there by chance, falls in love with one of the young male lepers. Soon she is bearing his child. His wife suddenly arrives from the outside world and tragedy ensues within this strange love triangle.

While returning to Leningrad from a visit to his brother, Professor Artyom's car breaks down and he finds assistance at an isolated farmhouse occupied by Alexey, his wife, a Vietnamese laborer, and a stranger who wanders around the farm. When his car is repaired, Artyom leaves, drunk on moonshine, and students Valera and Angelika arrive. After Valera gets drunk, the stranger abducts Angelika.

A lonely man imprisoned in prison sculpts human figures out of clay and imagines himself to be their merciful god

An almanac of short feature films based on stories by Mikhail Mishin from the collection of short stories "Pause in a Major".