Vitia, who works as a mechanic at his father's service station, recently studied to become a psychologist in absentia and now strives to apply the knowledge he has gained in practice. But so far he has only one client, and those around him think psychology is nonsense.
Fluke Kelso, a dissipated, middle-aged former Oxford historian, who is in Moscow to attend a conference on the newly opened Soviet archives, receives in his hotel a very unexpected visitor.
After they were adopted by two different families as children, fate brings the two orphaned sisters together when they become involved with the same man.