Young Svetlana, just out of nursing school, begins her first job working at the Second District Neuropsychological Hospital. The hospital, which only takes up to ten patients at a time, has an unusual history. Located in the countryside in a palatial manor, surrounded by peaceful woodlands of birch and oak, where wild raspberries grow and squirrels chatter in trees, the hospital had once been the estate of the Count Makarov. In 1938, after his sixteen-year-old son suffered a psychotic breakdown, Politburo Leader Sobolev had used his influence in the Communist Party to take control of the estate, and established the hospital there as a small, elite, comfortable asylum for the mentally ill. There are not many staff members: just two psychiatrists, the likable Dr. Makarov, whom, due to his last name (just a coincidence), everyone affectionately calls “The Count“, and the odd and depressed Dr.