New Year's Eve. The boy Mitya, who loves to fantasize, jokingly tells his comrades at school that his children's toy watch with painted hands is magical and can stop all the clocks in the world, stop time, or even revive a snowman.

Woven around the daily lives of two children, nine-year-old Nastenka and five-year-old Katia, this is a story of the 17 months' siege of Leningrad and of the people and families shattered by the war, their homes bombed and destroyed, their lives in a constant anticipation of the advancing German army and air raids.

Semyon Danilovich Petukhov was very surprised to found upon returning from vacation that he was declared dead and... buried.

A fairy tale about a conceited young man and a young woman with a tyrannical step-mother, who must overcome magical trials in order to be together.