In the final years of the Soviet Union, Litovtsev lives a strange yet vivid life. One Saturday morning, he leaves his Leningrad apartment to spend the day with his best friend. Jokes about his father-in-law, a trip to the bathhouse, and a party follow in quick succession. The next day, Litovtsev endures a hangover to steal and read some government-run newspapers. Mysteriously, after he leaves to barter with a friend for some train tickets, he returns to see the word "scum" written in chalk across his door. His mother, too, is worried—someone has called her and told her that Litovtsev was killed in a car accident. The next morning, he catches someone lurking outside his door and, after he follows the man home, he leaves a threatening note outside his door. Unperturbed, he meets his best friend for their trip—they are going to Moscow by train. Halfway between the two capitals, the train stops at the town of Bologoye, at which point he reminisces about an earlier train trip with his grandmother that stopped in the same place. Thirty hours later, he returns to Leningrad to find a catastrophe—he had left the shower handle on before he left because there was no water in the pipes, so when the water returned that night, it flooded his apartment and ruined the floor below it. To avoid a lawsuit, Litovtsev promises to pay 400 rubles for damages, but he has no idea how to get the money. That night, he receives a call: after ten years, his exit permit has been granted. He can emigrate. But instead of celebrating, he berates the woman on the phone and hangs up. Litovtsev spends the next day drinking, partying, and avoiding KGB agents.