Adapted from Anton Chekhov's short story "Ward 6“

Idealistic Andrey Ragin (Aleksei Guskov) is the head doctor at a provincial mental hospital near St. Petersburg at the end of the 19th century. He reads about new methods of treating hysteria developed by a Viennese doctor, ideas illustrated onscreen by fantasy sequences set in a stark operating theater that contrasts with the squalor of Ragin's own filthy, poorly disciplined asylum.

Ragin decides to apply doctor’s incredible methods is his hospital. More and more often he visits ward #6 talking to patients. Soon enough his colleagues and friends begin to treat him as a lunatic.