The film is based on real events that took place in Samara in 1956 and known as the "Standing Zoe." During the holiday girl, without waiting her betrothed, removes the icon from the wall and Nicholas begins to dance with her, but suddenly freezes in place. This state continues for many months. Residents of the provincial town are frightened by this extraordinary event, which is cluttered with rumors and speculation. To try to understand the situation, there goes metropolitan newspaper journalist ...
Provincial town near Moscow. Here in a large communal apartment several families live. Each has its own concerns, its interests, its troubles and joys. A communal apartment is not just a habitat. This is a kind of section of society. They are all very different, members of this "communal dormitory": the intelligent Vera and the philistine Larisa, old-age pensioners who live their lives, and the invalid Lyra, who dreams of a happy life in faraway Australia, the soulless clerk Bozhok and the young scientist Victor, forced to look for tutoring . However, their fates are inextricably linked with events and difficult collisions taking place in the country, with a sense of instability, fear, anxious expectation: something must happen.