Valery Rybin

A shell-shocked Afghanistan war hero named Ivan Skryabin (Mikhail Skryabin) spends his days stoking the fire in a giant coal furnace. When he isn’t tending the flames, he keeps busy with other activities. He works on a historical novel. His adult daughter Sasha (Aida Tumutova) comes to visit. Local kids come to gaze at the flames. Gangsters, including a former Army sergeant (Aleksandr Mosin) and a sniper known as Bison (Yuri Matveyev), drop by to add special kindling to the fire.

An ordinary ram — one. And a bag of "choice grass" — one. This was enough to mix all the cards and create a comedic parable about the good oddities who live in Central Asia in a place called "Wonderful Valley": an orphan shepherd boy in love with a local beauty, whom his grandfather is going to marry an oligarch. Two stoned scoundrels, serving on the parcels of the oligarch. A kind aunt who believes in miracles and love. And her granddaughter — a local singer who was going to marry an American against the will of her father. One day a ram appears in the village with a mysterious inscription on its side and immediately "everything is mixed up in the "Wonderful Valley": fathers and children, love and hate, oligarchs and shepherds, drugs and magic sheep... And the result is ... three whole weddings!»

The year 1829. Nikolay Gogol, a young Third Section clerk, is desperate: his own books seem shallow and mediocre, so he keeps buying entire print runs just to burn them all. He is suffering from violent epileptic seizures and struggles to keep on working. Investigator Yakov Guro accidentally witnesses one such fit and realizes that Gogol's visions contain clues that could help solve actual crimes. Together, Gogol and Guro take on a particularly weird and baffling case that brings them to a small village of Dikanka, where everyone has a huge secret to hide.

Wartime, summer 1941. Train carrying criminals gets under enemy fire and crashed. Out of all of the living are only a young lieutenant of the NKVD and two prisoners - the thief and repressed Communist party worker.

Soon after Gogol's death, Binh names him guilty for the deaths of the Cossacks and the young women at the hands of the Dark Horseman, since he was the one who ordered them to be hidden in the barn. Bomgart is unable to perform a post-mortem analysis on the Gogol's body, while Vakula's daughter Vasilina (who secretly has magic abilities) proclaims denial about Gogol's demise.

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...

A mysterious Dark Horseman slays young girls near the village of Dikanka, and he has already butchered 11 ladies. Nikolai Gogol, a scribe from Saint Petersburg has to take charge of the investigation, but the closer he gets to solving the case, the more fits he has, causing macabre visions. When he learns the next victim is his beloved, Liza, he doubts that he can protect her and resist the murderer. Fortunately, he meets somebody who can help him: Khoma Brut, the witch hunter, martial artist and philosopher. Together they spend three dreadful nights in an old chapel reading the funeral service for Ulyana, the witch, and calling upon the ghastly evil spirit Viy.

A detachment of Red Army soldiers is ambushed, from where only the boy can escape.