Chatsky— a young nobleman—returns to Moscow from enlightened Germany. For three years he hasn’t seen his beloved Sophia and now plans to marry her. But Sophia already loves someone else. The emotional drama is made even harder by the fact that Chatsky feels like an outsider in Russia’s capital. To his great disappointment, Russia is the same as before: rigid in its love of ranks and careerism, full of hypocrisy, and not at all in line with his new ideals of freedom, brotherhood, and equality.