The artist of the original genre Pavel Durov spends the night at the penalty area of the traffic police of a provincial town. The bumper of his “Lada” is broken by a “ZIL” watering machine, he has nowhere to shelter at night. Reflecting on why he travels around the country for no apparent purpose, Durov feels that he “lost his grooves”, lost his place in life and the feeling of the need for the genre. He does not understand whether he holds onto the right to be a creator of miracles or is ashamed of his genre. He does not know if anyone needs miracles.
Durov listens to the conversation of the dead - victims of traffic accidents gathered at night in the penalty area, and tries to find out from them: what is it, where are they coming from? But one of the dead sadly answers him: for the time being, this is not your mind business. Asleep Durov had a wonderful time when he was a full-fledged part, and maybe the center of life.
Having woken up and having repaired the car, Durov continues his journey. Near Feodosia, he takes fellow travelers, one of whom, a beer saleswoman, Alla Filipuk, is looking for her lover Nikolai Soloveykin. No matter how Alla tries to assure herself that for love it is necessary to live in the same interests with her beloved and have respect for him, at the end of the path she admits that it was Kolka the parasite who made her a real woman and this is the only reason for her desire for him. Having changed his route, Durov takes Alla to the ferry and swims with her through the Kerch Strait to Novorossiysk, where Alla finds the impenetrable Nikolai. He sits on the deck with dredgers sharpening a chisel, "in order to reveal his strengths in nature." After a night of love with a “sweet” Alla, Nikolai goes on deck and swims out of the dredger.
Another fellow traveler of Durov becomes Mama. She gets into his car near Velikiye Luki and tells that she is going to her daughter Zinaida in the village of Soltsy, Novgorod Region. Son-in-law Konstantin took a walk with the librarian Lariska, Mama goes to settle family problems. On the way, Durov picks up the accountant of the regional prison Zhukov, and Mama quickly agrees that he will call in Soltsy to threaten his son-in-law. Having visited Mamanov’s relatives, Durov did not immediately get out of them. He empties countless half-liter, eats Maman's dumplings, sleeps with the beautiful Zinaida and dreams of a miracle. At this time, who arrived in Soltsy, the Beetles fell in love with Lariska the Separator.
Waking up after a stormy drunken and loving night, Durov feels like "something was close, but did not happen, it flared up with might and main, but went out." Nevertheless, he was happy because he was ready to print the bags with the requisite, was a stone's throw from the genre.
On the road to the south, Durov met Lesha Kharitonov. On the “Moskvich” of its own assembly, he has been transporting his large family from Tyumen to the Crimea for the third week. The whole family, even mother-in-law, believes that in spite of everything he will achieve the goal. Soon the "Moskvich" brakes fail and he falls into a ditch. Durov was passing by on his new Zhiguli, but soon he almost became a victim of the accident. Then he returns, takes the family of Lesha Kharitonov in his car and takes him to Koktebel, to the sea. Durov himself is awaited in a cheap hotel on Golden Sands by colleagues, artists of the dying genre. They agreed to rest together without saying a word about work. But Durov is not in a hurry to them, realizing that they can’t avoid talking about the genre escaping from the wheels ...
In a small Baltic town, Durov is mistaken for a counterfeiter, because he pays with brand new bills, exactly the same as the real counterfeiter made. Durov, on the other hand, received this money for staging a sports festival, “Day, Links!” He manages to justify himself only by the fact that he gives all notes to unfamiliar newlyweds from the local combine. Having somehow got out of the wedding, on the way he meets his colleague, Sashka’s former inseparable friend, and finds out that Sasha is the same counterfeiter for whom Durov was taken. The former illusionist made counterfeit money out of despair. Having heard Durov’s story about a journey in search of a genre, Sashka burns fake banknotes and, slightly conjuring, withdraws from circulation those that he has already put into circulation.
The next passenger of Durov is the young hippie Arkadius. He dropped out of school, did not join the army due to flat feet. Now Arkadius travels to Moscow to watch the Mona Lisa, which is located there from Japan to Paris. As a fare, Arkadius gives Durov verses of his own composition - about a theater without walls and a roof, which fourteen loafers and captain Ivan defeated on a village street. Suddenly, Durov realizes that the fifteen that this poem is written about are he and his colleagues in the genre. Succumbing to an instant impulse, he goes to the Valley, where a miracle should happen.
Illusionists Alexander, Bruce, Wenceslas, Guillaume, Dieter, Eusebius, Jean-Claude, Zbigniew, Kenzaburo, Luigi, Mahmoud, Norman and Oscar gather in the mountains near the camp of glaciologists. Each of them experienced happiness over the years in love, drowned, died, swam out, climbed out, despondent, and freaked out from despair, but no one betrayed youth for big or small money, no one acquired arrogance, cruelty, and vileness in travels.
Glaciologists left the camp because avalanches are expected. But the illusionists decide to turn this Valley into a valley of miracles and unfold their props: Generator Like As, Cymbals of Echo, Barrel of Avatar, Hoses of the Past, Powder Threads of the Future, etc. Here three huge avalanches sweep away magicians and their miracles.
Young Arkadius gets angry when he arrives in Moscow: it turns out that the long-awaited meeting with Mona Lisa will take place not in private, but in a crowd of people; the modern world presents him with another “get along”. But suddenly, when he peers into the picture, Mona Lisa raises her hand, closing her smile, and Arkadius sees her palm - that miracle and happiness that will last him for life.
It is not known what phenomena occurred in the avalanche mass, but at night Durov and his comrades find themselves on its surface. Their props are destroyed, they have no feelings, no memories. Suddenly, they see another valley in the distance and understand that it is the true Valley that they all aspired to. The air of love surrounds them, a miracle of lakes, a miracle of trees, a miracle of night lights, a miracle of grass and flowers are performed before their eyes. Friends follow the miracle of a lion deep into the Valley and prepare to meet new miracles.
