Dir.: Alexei Balabanov; Script: Alexei Balabanov; Phot.: Segei Astakhov; Ed.: Marina Lipartiya; Mus.: Slava Butusov; Cast: Sergei Bodrov, Victor Sukhorukov, Svetlana Pismichenko, Maria Zhukova, Yuri Kuznetsov, Slava Butosov; Prod.: Sergei Selianov, STW Film Co., 10 Kamennoostrovsky avenue, St-Pétersbourg (Russie), tél.: (812) 237-0322, fax: (812) 237-0317; Sales: Gorky Film Studio, 8 Eisenstein Street, 129226 Moscou (Russie), tél.: (095) 181-2091, fax: (095) 181-2514 .

Danila Bragov has just completed a two-year stint in the army, mostly spent behind a desk. Now back in his hometown, he finds life too dull for his taste and decides to drop in on his older brother, Viktor, who has made a successful life for himself in St. Petersburg. When he comes to the big city, however, Danila finds that Viktor goes by the nickname "Tatar" and that he is a hired killer for the local mafia. This doesn't faze Danila. He signs on as his brother's assistant and is soon given a $20,000 contract on a mobster known as "the Chechin". Danila carries out the job but is wounded in the process and seeks refuge with a kindly gangster known as "the German". During time out from crime, Danila turns his talents to romancing the opposite sex, in particular a train conductor named Sveta whose husband abuses her when he isn't absent and a young drug addict named Kat. This is the "new" St. Petersburg where people rendezvous at McDonald's, carry guns, listen to Westernized music and do drugs. This is the "new" Russia and Danila is its paradigm citizen.