Doctors' plot
Some time before these incidents, we see events from the life of military-medical service general Yuri Klensky. In the Soviet Union, the "Doctors' plot," in which a group of predominantly Jewish doctors are accused of a plot to kill Stalin, is in full swing. But the Klensky, himself Jewish, cheers himself up with almost non-stop drunkenness, hopes that Soviet justice will not touch him. However, a number of events suggest that Klensky's hopes are futile, and that his arrest will soon follow. In an early scene, the general meets his own double in the hospital, and then there is a "foreigner" in his house bearing news about a relative who alledgedly lives abroad. Klensky, suspecting that this is a provocation, throws the "foreigner" down the stairs, but a local snitch manages to report in time to the MGB senior about the doctor's contact with foreigners.