Alexander Bespaly

Varakin, un ingénieur moscovite, se rend pour affaires dans une petite ville de province et doit faire face à un tourbillon d'événements insolites et de situations kafkaïennes : La secrétaire qui le reçoit travaille nue, le directeur de l'usine qu'il visite découvre que son ingénieur en chef est mort noyé il y a huit mois. Le cuisinier du restaurant où va dîner Varakin lui offre un dessert en forme de tête humaine et se suicide car ce dernier refuse de goûter au gâteau offert. Les routes vont nulle part et la gare ne délivre pas de ticket...

A funny adventures of Alyosha Sidorov in summer camp.

A Soviet cargo ship carrying medical opium gets attacked by pirates of an unknown nationality. The crew is left to die on a sinking ship but they manage to escape and now must fight the pirates for survival.

Falling Star is based on three stories by the contemporary Russian writer Viktor Astafyev and centers on a young soldier on the front lines who is wounded and taken to the hospital. Once there, he muses about his childhood and a little girl he had loved - someone who could easily have grown up to be the nurse that is attending to him now. As he recuperates, he and the nurse fall in love and he very much wants to marry her. At this point, the nurse's mother comes for a visit and advises him against such an action because if they were to marry and he were subsequently killed or maimed in action - the fighting is still close to the hospital - the nurse would suffer much more than if he just left her alone. Now it is up to the soldier to make a decision one way or the other.