A man in a grey-beige suit works the stairwell of a Soviet apartment block, talking to a young woman at her door and to a mustachioed neighbor in a white undershirt; he carries a red bucket out to the courtyard. In the alley he chases something along the ground, first swatting with his folded jacket and then crouching with a small hand net, and afterwards the undershirted neighbor counts out banknotes to pay him.