This is one of the most beautifully filmed movies I've seen in my life. One of the weirdest too. The basic plot is simple: eccentric (or maybe just insane) Nikolai Petrovich comes to St. Petersburg to overthrow the oligarchy. The oligarchy doesn't like that and sends its agents after him. Bashirov, however, tells the story in what are basically a bunch of absurd sketches kept (barely) together by a bombastic, 19th century style voice-over. Some sketches are quite good if you're into absurd humour, but a lot of them are not, often because of Bashirov's own overacting. And they don't connect too well, making the film hard to understand sometimes, but that's probably on purpose.