 The Beginning" is the first of three films of the project "Gogol" and the first Russian television series to have a theatrical release.The year is 1829.Young Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, a judicial clerk in the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery in St. Petersburg, suffers seizures on the job, falling into a semi-conscious state in which he is pursued by strange visions and writes seemingly meaningless words.