Two young friends psychiatrists perceive life differently. One desires to act by the rules. The other one prefers experimenting. One is a hard worker while the second one likes to break the silence. One loves with hate, the other one hates with love. It's a pity they both have one passion - Katherina Sergeevna. To one she is a loving mother, father's wife. To the other - a lover.

This is an interesting yet bizarre little tale of a fictional (as far as I know, anyway) experiment performed during the Stalin-controlled years in the USSR. The main character is changed from a woman into a man. This is part of a larger plan to change more women into men and have a stronger work-force/army, etc. It's a very in-depth character study of the main character, who tries to fit into a world that she (now 'he') doesn't really understand, especially since she's now a man ... Stalin dislikes the results of the experiments and has the scientist killed. The main character then goes off to live a life as a simple, unknown everyday Soviet, but is inexplicably drawn into larger and larger schemes (somewhat reminiscent of "Forrest Gump" in that way). (s)He has run-ins with different important characters, including his ex-boyfriend from his days of being a woman, as well as going on a demented quest for the nurse with whom he possibly fell in love after the operation... However, he is trapped in his life as an important Soviet married man, and in the end makes a huge sacrifice for his country (unwillingly), and the movie goes from there to an ending that is possibly happy, yet still somehow incredibly depressing.