The film consists of five short stories that reflect five stages (1947 — 1950 — 1957 — 1967 — 1982) the action programs of the heroine of the film, from the age of fifteen, rushed to a typical goal for that time — to smile from the front page of a central newspaper. Her fate is not simple: unhappy love, life with the unloved, a labor colony, love again, then love in return, earthquakes, fires, devastation. The heroine is getting closer to the goal and nothing can stop her..

Three murders are committed in a sanatorium under the poetic name "Cherry Orchard". But the police inspector does not have to break his head for a long time in search of killers - he knows almost everything: who, when and how were killed, the killers - the only thing left to figure out are the reasons...

Principal bachelor, master of plastic surgery under rather strange circumstances, meets with the long-nosed militiaman. Having made her an operation, he, like Pygmalion, who created Galatea, falls in love with the beautiful creation of his hands and declares: "I want to marry you!".

How can change your life if someone tells you that your husband is cheating on you?

The film tells about two elderly widows who live in the same house. They are united not only by tragedy, but also by common concern, namely the grave of two unknown soldiers, which they have been guarding for over 30 years. And suddenly the managers of their district decide to turn the grave into a memorial.

A music teacher is trying to organize a choir in the school he works in.

In one famous shopping center an unusual person works as a security guard. He helps everyone: sellers of fashionable clothes, cleaners and barmen in cafeteria. He knows everybody and everything, and people around do love him. It is more than work, it is a real life, full-fledged life – he dresses free of charge, eats at restaurants, sleeps in a furniture store and participates in night races on floor polishers. Actually, he has a secret dream, that’ s why he saves all his money to carry out it some day.

A very sick girl asks her father to get her a live elephant. Based on the early stories by Alexander Kuprin.

Once upon a time, a young and cheerful painter named Makar was invited to the king's palace... There he saw a beautiful woman trying on a crown. Makar fell in love, but was expelled from the palace. After undergoing all kinds of trials and heroic deeds, the former painter came to the palace to ask for the princess's hand in marriage, but saw before him a capricious ugly woman—and realized that he had been enchanted by the servant Katya.

A young girl wants to rob her mother's bank in order to have her to leave work and come home for a New Year Eve.

A few days from the life of average brothel in early XX century Russia. Based on the classical novel by Aleksandr Kuprin.