The film takes place in the USSR in 1949. In the Marfino sharashka near Moscow, convict scientists are working on the order of Stalin himself - a secret telephony apparatus.

"V kruge pervom" is a ten-episode TV-series based on the autobiographical book 'The First Circle' by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Film is set in 1949-1950, in Moscow and in a prison-laboratory in the town of Marfino, near Moscow. Gleb Nerzhin (Mironov) is arrested and imprisoned in "Sharashka" in Mafrino, a prison-laboratory for secret research. His life has a value due to his degree in mathematics. He is involved in making a telephone bug, a research program which is supervised by Stalin.—Steve Shelokhonov