1938, Soviet Russia. There were two of them, both strong and courageous. But one fateful day, Igor Petrov, the commander of a Red Army unit, is compelled to exchange ID papers with a satecracker known as Ash. The incident leads both men to start their lives completely anew. For the following ten years, Petrov and Ash will live their lives in the fear of discovery. They will commit acts of bravery and insidious crimes in the name of the other so that the thiet becomes a hero, while the commander turns into a violent outlaw. The only thing they have in common is a tragic, painful love for the same woman. For ten years they will each encounter death and destruction before fate brings them together once more. There will be two of them again - strong and courageous, ready to fight for their love.. with the knowledge that retribution awaits them.

The author of The Kolyma Stories and many other works spent 17 years in the terrible GULAG camps on Kolyma. The term that Varlam Tikhonovich received in 1929 was for distributing Lenin's letter to the congress, in which he criticized Stalin. Nowadays, this letter is called the "testament of Lenin"…

The watchman is a joker of the garage cooperative, he is happy to tell funny stories from his life to the guests. He tells a variety of people who come to his lodge. By nature, he is such a philosopher, with an incomprehensible confusing past. He is an expert in many fields. And as the film progresses, it becomes clear that he understands art, philosophy, cinema, and is able to express his opinion effectively. And so he tells the guests different stories. And each story is a separate series, with its own beginning, culmination and denouement. And the main character unites all these stories. And an ironic attitude to all these events.

In search of sensational material, the capital's journalist Tatyana Blok finds herself in the village. The reason for the shooting is large-scale: one morning in the village of Verkhnyye Brody (across the river from the Lower Ones), all the people disappeared. Twenty people at once. Money, documents, and all the livestock were left in place. Tatiana takes over the investigation. For her, this is a chance to prove that she was fired from television for nothing, and she is able to shoot high-quality investigative reports. But for this, Tatiana will have to learn how to live in the village, or rather, to survive in it.

MOORE's investigator, Colonel Alexander Khlystov, receives an old photograph in the mail: it shows Yesenin, who has just been taken out of the loop. According to the rules, the investigator must give the case a legal course.