The story of the last year and a half of Tsar Nicholas II and his family from the February Revolution of 1917 to their execution in July 1918.
The film is set in 1913 Russia during the celebrations of the Tricentennial Anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty. Rich Russian merchants are celebrating their wealth by gambling and playing poker. They are traveling aboard the luxurious cruise liner "St. Nikolai" on Volga river, oblivious to the fact that several gangs of crooks and con-artists are stealing their money in the game. Their target is the wealthiest Russian tycoon Satanovsky.
A small provincial town. The inhabitants are bored, apathetic and bitter... Peredonov, a modest high school teacher, dreams about a promotion and moving to the capital. Gradually his dream becomes an obsession. Varvara, his second cousin who dreams about marrying him, writes a promising letter about an invitation to Saint-Petersburg on behalf of the capital's princess. But the teacher's dreams aren't meant to come true: he becomes a victim of his own insanity and kills his friend and the hateful Varvara...
A young Russian store clerk has a drab existence in times of shortages and is berated by her ailing mother for not seeing men. So she brings home an unknown young man who she met on the tram. She dreams many things but pines for this man.
In the new Russia, former middle class citizens find themselves out in the dumps. Literally. They build homes, elect their own government, work, beg, scavenge, date and fight all while living in a huge city dump. Some try to beat the odds and return to society, but it seems that there is only one place left for them to go...
A young aristocrat, Aleksei Fedyashev, is languishing in his family's country estate, spending his days reading poetry and confessing his love... to a statue. Upon hearing that famous Count Cagliostro is touring Russia and has created quite a buzz in high society with his "magic", he decides to ask the Count to bring the statue to life...
Abkhazia, 1921. Alkhas, a Bolshevik underground worker, returns to his native village to strengthen Soviet power in his homeland. Aditsa, the prince's daughter, falls in love with Alkhas, but her father would like to marry her to Prince Safarbey. The prince did not accept the new power and took up arms. Safarbey's gang kills Red Army liaison Korablev...
A successful young journalist goes to a small industrial city in order to understand the written complaints of a certain girl. When he met the author of the letters and the girl whom she had slandered, he didn't immediately understand the complexity of the situation and the measure of responsibility to those whom he was obliged to protect...