During a freezing WWII winter, two Soviet partisans on a mission to gather food contend with the temperature, the occupying Germans, and their own psyches.

The year is 1940 and Nazi Germany is at the height of its military prowess, having captured most of Europe and eyeing the Soviet Union to the East. The Russian military command suspects hostile intent from Germany and so arranges for its spies to infiltrate ranks of the German military and the SS. Alexander Belov is a Russian spy, who travels from Soviet-held Latvia to Nazi Germany under an alias of Johann Weiss. His mastery of the German language, steel nerves and an ability to manipulate others help him to use his connections in the SS to ascend the ladder of the German intelligence. He uses his position to identify sympathetic Germans, who help him to procure vital intelligence, and to help local resistance movements in their collective fight against Nazism.

On their way to a Black Sea resort, a Siberian tractor driver and his wife make new friends and take a detour to Moscow.

After living half of his life, the protagonist remembers that somewhere in a provincial town lives his ex-wife and his grown-up son. He goes to a place where he is neither expected nor remembered.

The militia is looking for a dangerous repeat offender, Sobol, also known as "Artist," who's known to be linked to a fugitive from a penal colony and is preparing to attack a cash conveyor.

Russian officer Pechorin falls in love with Bela, the daughter of a local chieftain. By tricking her brother Azamat into abducting her, he calls upon himself the wrath of horseman Kazbich.

Pre-Petrine Russia, Semyon Lazarev, one of the instigators of the “Copper Riot”, is forced to flee, as a result of which he ends up in the army of the leader of the peasant uprising Stepan Razin.

Three of them hunted a bear, but a man was accidentally killed instead. The investigation must determine which of the hunters is responsible for this death. However, there is also a judgment of conscience — the most difficult judgment, because a compromise with one's own conscience never leads to good.