Aleksandr Medvedev

A Bruxelles, un véhicule décoré au logo d'une agence de voyage roule à vive allure sur une bretelle d'autoroute. A l'intérieur : un homme et trois femmes : Miguel, espagnol, livreur de billets d'avion, vit seul avec sa fille et aspire à rejoindre sa femme partie chanter aux USA. Laura, belgo-espagnole, fille de Miguel, collectionne les poupées Barbie et aspire à ce que sa mère revienne en Belgique. Sonia, Ukrainienne, professeur de français à Odessa, passée clandestinement en Belgique, souhaite retrouver son mari disparu. Abuelita, espagnole, mère de Miguel et grand-mère de Laura, aime les churros et Les Feux de l'amour. Elle aimerait connaître la fin de l'histoire de Sonia. Aujourd'hui, Miguel doit livrer un billet à un client très important. Mais comment faire avec une mère envahissante, une fille trop curieuse et cette étrangère qu'il faut aider ?

A small provincial town is home to two rival teenage gangs, one devoted to loose living and punk music and the other a collection of narrow-minded bodybuilders obsessed with order and convinced of their own moral rectitude. However, this cosy state of affairs is upset by the arrival of two strangers dressed like Pushkin, the famous early 19th century Russian poet, who proceed to found their own organisation, dedicated ostensibly to the memory of the great writer and the "salvation of Russia". Gradually, they begin to assume control of the town...

Srubov is a part of CHEKA, the secret police Lenin established after the Bolshevik Revolution. They arrest, interview for a minute, try in ten seconds, and execute intellectuals, aristocrats, Jews, clergy, and their families. In the building basement, five people at a time are shot as they stand naked facing wooden doors. No one to remember their last words; no martyrs, just anonymous bodies. Daily, the kangaroo court, the executions, the loading of bodies onto wagons. Srubov is cold, distant, sexually dysfunctional, and a deep thinker, hated by former friends and his family. As he tries to reason the nature of revolution and the purpose of CHEKA, he slowly goes mad.

A story about the life of a woman, two men of her life and her son, Janek Garbus, seen through the eyes of the latter - "conceived by an NKVD uncle on the night after the Soviet army entered".