Stage actor Oleg and his wife Katya are watching TV wenn the doorbell rings: Their new neighbour Arnold has come to introduce himself. The three have dinner together and drink and laugh. But within the next days there is increasing evidence that Katya has an affair with Arnold. While in a bar drowning his sorrow with vodka, Oleg gets to know the pensioner Prokhorov. Oleg tells him about his woe, whereupon the cosmopolitan Prokhorov makes him an unusual offer to solve the problem: Oleg shall poison his unfaithful wife!
To emphasize his idea, Prokhorov tells the astonished Oleg about numerous historically confirmed cases of poisonous murders, where emperors, kings and popes got rid of unloved fellow men. Some of these anecdotes are being illustrated in lavishly decorated "flashbacks".
After initial hesitation, Oleg decides to follow the old man's advice. But the plan isn't easy to fulfill - especially. as Oleg soon has not only to deal with Katya, but with her mother as well. So he has to learn strategies for survival.