Following a brawl, Captain Ignat, who is traumatised by the death of his daughter, is ordered together with a regular soldier to find a deserter and bring him back via Moscow to stand before a military court. Although they locate the young soldier, their journey across the wintry moloch that is Moscow is slow and tortuous. Before long, the unlikely trio find themselves drawn into a chaotic maelstrom of violence, corruption, criminality, degradation and squalidness. In the face of the monstrous malaise and everyday horror of life in Russia, the gradual breakdown of the film’s anti-hero becomes a metaphor for Russian society.

Shameless slimeball Eduard "Edik" Letov - clad in an everpresent Hawaiian shirt - puts the sting on alien travelers hoping to connect with their roots, by having local phonies pose as the visitors' long-lost relatives. Complications abound when Letov attempts to pass off an entire village under the guise of a community wiped out during the Second World War. The arrival of a group of trouble-causing misfits, among them mobster Barukh - who wishes to bury his mother's remains, only to discover that someone keeps exhuming them - and the lech Simon - a Canadian with an insatiable fetish for his sexy translator - turn Letov's latest scheme into a veritable cat's cradle.