Dovlatov charts six days in the life of a brilliant, ironic writer who saw far beyond the rigid limits of 70s Soviet Russia. Sergei Dovlatov fought to preserve his own talent and decency with poet and writer Joseph Brodsky, while watching his artist friends got crushed by the iron-willed state machinery.
Together with a team of eminent historians, the producers have pieced together all the events that took place on 14 December 1825 from the beginning to the development and conclusion of the uprising, showing the parts played by the main participants and organizers. A chronologically assembled chain of historical events offers viewers the chance to conduct their own investigation into the case and work out what really happened on that fateful night in Senate Square almost two centuries ago.
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.