As an honorary guest, Claudia Alekseevna arrives at the opening of the branch of the Institute of Culture. She will have to visit her mother, ex-husband, teachers, forgotten friends and girlfriends in her homeland...

As a gift to the fortieth anniversary Yakov receives from the Chairman of collective farm the permit to the resort. He is sent on leave by force, in the hope that he will be able finally to arrange his personal life. But, in vain. At the station Yakov meets his ex-wife with her new husband and finds out that they are going to the same sanatorium. So begins this story.

The main character Vorobei is a professional grave digger and alcohol addict, who runs away from hospital to dig graves instead of treating his head broken by his brother. He comes to cemetery and keeps on working, instead of his friends' advice to stay in the hospital. The world of death turns out to be surrounded by corruption, satanic money-making, cemetery mafia and lots of vodka.

The wedding turns into a crime scene. The wedding is like the apotheosis of meaninglessness, a metaphor for society. The story of the generation of the eighties with a tragic ending. The film uses the true facts of the criminal case.

Anna and Nikolai meet many years later. In their youth, they loved each other, but life separated them.