What did you do on August 19?

Surprisingly, the most important event of Russian history is almost not reflected in the cinema. A failed restoration attempt, only accelerating the collapse of the Union and the creation of Russian statehood, is a topic, as if secretly taboo, which is even incomprehensible how to talk, and therefore it is shown in the cinema "either well or in any way." August of the 91st is not mentioned in the mainstream cinema, remaining a topic for marginals- TV-Podakshen , refined dock or cinema of the second echelon. However, the farther from the 91st , the less enthusiastic and tendential the view of the cinema in August of that year becomes.

Vlad (Georgy Marchenko) is a young diplomat who meets with the daughter of the secretary of the regional committee Zina (Lisa Boyarskaya). Uncle Vlad Oleg Sergeyevich, General of the KGB, is married to actress Tamara. Tamara plays in the amateur erotic movie of Vlad. Oleg Sergeyevich is jealous of her like Othello. Wanting to take revenge on his uncle, Vlad sends him a video cassette with the film.

All these Shakespearean passions flare up in August of the 91st , and in addition to personal problems, Oleg Sergeyevich has more important things to support the old regime, he tries to suppress the “riots”, the center of which is the White House surrounded by a live chain. But Yeltsin wins, and the general runs to the Crimea, where all other participants in this drama have already gathered: Tamara is resting with her son there, and Vlad arrives on Zina's birthday. The spa idyll becomes an arena of a bloody interchange, which is clearly read as an echo of large political cataclysms.

The film closes the documentary chronicle; In one of the frames, Vladimir Putin's face flashes for a second.