The end of the Soviet empire. The General Secretary lies in the government clinic. He is old and frail, but has a tight grip on power. "The power is only taken, it is never given away," he repeats. And it is convenient for both the elites and the secret services -- while the "body" is alive, various groups are scoring their political points. The General Secretary is "sentenced to life". A young nurse Sasha looks after him. Small, fragile and invisible, she bears a heavy burden of responsibility for the life of the country's top official. Meanwhile, the old man is waging a war in Afghanistan, has a nuclear button and can take the entire world to the grave with him.
Some sporting victories are about more than just claiming a title. Some of them go down in history. The film follows the most dramatic and legendary showdown in the history of chess – the match between Anatoly Karpov, then world champion, and Viktor Korchnoi, a recent emigrant from the USSR. In this battle between two outstanding chess players, a duel of personalities under immense psychological pressure, the stakes are incomprehensibly high.