Alex is creating a databank of dreams, claming he knows how to digitise the dreamimage. It is just a self publicity ploy and Alex is soon woken up to the reality of underprivilege, corruption and state terror by an ex-convict Lubov, with whom Alex has an unlikely love affair.

Vera Andreyevna and Grigory Petrovich are an elderly couple who have had a long and happy life together. One day in the market Vera Andreyevna runs into an untidy and half-drunk old man whom she recognizes with difficulty. It is Alyosha, who was in the same orphanage with her and who had been her first love. Reminiscences overwhelm them and stir their hearts. Alexei Ivanovich, who had lived a far from easy life, undergoes an amazing change. He begins to look younger and more orderly. Vera Andreyevna feels she is a woman again, a woman who has to make her choice.

Young Sasha is brought into a state-run children's home because his mother died early and his father spends most of his life in prison. The conditions are like in a penal institution. Sasha tries several times to escape and to search for his father.