Um objeto voador não identificado que vem do espaço muda a visão da humanidade sobre a vida em outros planetas. Quando os alienígenas desembarcam na terra, a destruição é documentada pelos moradores de um bairro residencial de Moscou, que precisam sobreviver enquanto começam a questionar as motivações dos alienígenas.

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.