Mikhail Vasserbaum

Happy Ending

The private part of a young man leaves the owner and starts his own adventure...

A Room and a Half

A semi-fictional account of the life of Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, who was forced into American exile in 1972.

One at Home

Famous actors and TV presenters Nikolai Fomenko and Ivan Urgant want to celebrate the holiday quietly and calmly, but, having lost their way, they end up in an enchanted house that does not let them out until the heroes believe in the New Year, a real fairy tale and a miracle, immersing themselves in the atmosphere of popular films.

Peculiarities of the National Politics

General Ivolgin, forester Kuzmich, and good-natured Lyova now are going into politics.

Tycoon

During the Gorbachev years, Platon Makovski and his four buddies are university students who jump on the private capitalism movement. Fast-forward 20 years, Platon finds himself the richest man in Russia, having sacrificed his friends to get to the top. But with this cynical rise, comes a brutal fall.

Mechanical Suite

Two colleagues go to fetch the body of their co-worker from a neighboring town where that man died unexpectedly. As this person has no kin, the director of the factory chooses to send Markerants and Mityagin to deal with the whole business. And here the adventures begin...

American Bet

A story about a love between two teenagers set in the small Russian town during sixties.

To Whom Will God Send

Starting 1970s. Marina Rodionova gives birth to a child from a donor. Grown up son Andrei she tells the legend of the deceased father. It takes many years. Son of a student accidentally discovers that his father is a professor Hlyuzdin who teaches at his institute. Andrew's friend can not get from Ladder strict professor and then Andrew decides to introduce his father and mother.

Living With an Idiot

The main character is an intellectual from Russia, who sees it as his duty to bring an idiot from an mental institution to his house. He can pick someone out, after bribing the boss of the institution, with two bottles of vodka. He chooses Vova, at first sight a silly man, and takes him home. His wife is at first not very happy with this choice. Vova says and does nothing at all. Then he becomes an aggressive man, who terrorises the house and bashes everything to pieces. After she is raped by Vova, the wife gets sexually dependant on the Idiot. Vova isn't interested anymore, when she gets pregnant and doesn't keep the baby. The idiot goes now to the intellectual for his sexual needs. The wife can't take this anymore and forces her man to take a choice: Vova out, or she will go.

Chekist

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.