Kira Muratova made this film under the pseudonym of Ivan Sidorov in 1983, but the official release came in 1988. Taken from the novel by Vladimir Korolenko, this somber drama tells of a judge who is devastated after the death of his wife and is neglectful of his children. His son befriends the children of a street begg…

The film is based on the story by a war writer Vladimir Kondratiyev "Furlough by wound" - the story of several weeks spent in Moscow by a young Lieutenant Volodya after a course of treatment in a hospital.