One day, fourteen-year-old Ivan meets a remarkable girl, who persuades him to jump into an ice-cold river in the middle of winter. Believing that this is his chance to pull off a great coup – didn't he overhear the two teenagers whispering about treasure? – a nasty, little crook jumps in after them, his brother in tow. The policeman Peter Bunny – whose surname is a general source of mirth – sees an opportunity to prove his bravery, once and for all, and he too plunges into the icy water. Instead of contracting hypothermia, these crazy five discover The City with the Blue Door, a giant horse answering to the name of Terminator, who can change colour from black to white in a hoofbeat, the terrible dragon Smej Gorynitsch and – last but not least – the silver-grey wolf, without whose help all would be lost.

Xenia has her life completely under control. She leads a happy private life with her husband Sergej and her adolescent daughter Anja. Having just arrived back from a congress in Weimar, she starts organising a New Year's Eve party with her chaotic friend Vera, who is constantly falling in love, Marina, an out-of-work translator, and a few other good friends. Xenia's practice as a psychoanalyst is booming, and she has as many patients as she can possibly cope with. Then a colleague asks her to take over a case that she is having difficulty in handling. Unwillingly, and only because she owes her colleague a favour, Xenia agrees to meet the patient for a preliminary consultation. But the patient soon begins to interest her; in fact, he casts a spell over her with his intelligence and his charm. Xenia is so fascinated by the case that it is a long time before she notices that she is gradually getting out of her depth. This psycho-thriller, which is part of a cycle of three in each of which another of the three women friends is the main character, is Anna Dankowtsewa's debut – and a highly successful one at that.