The film starts as parody of a Soviet-era socialist realist film-making of the 1930s (The title is taken from the classic 1933 film by the Soviet filmmaker Boris Barnet, in which the beginning of the farm collectivization era is depicted.)
Peaceful life of farmers of remote Uralian village is interrupted when their former collective farm is sold. The toughest ones unite and track down the offenders one by one. Their quest for truth and justice is very violent, although almost all the violence occurs off screen, and often we are unsure of the victims fate. The movie was shot in Black and white and the music is old Soviet movie music, so it is hard to determine when the events are happening – around the WWII or maybe even today. Hence it could be interpreted as attack on modern capitalism in Russia.

Andrei's ex-girlfriend Tania (Anzhela Belyanskaya) has been constantly in danger of going to jail since he knew her. Their breakup was not his doing, and he is determined to keep her out of jail. Andrei (Oleg Menshikov) has a notion that, if he can raise enough money, he can smuggle her out of Russia into New York, where all will be well. While Andrei's grasp on reality may be tenuous, his ability to maneuver and scheme is unimpaired. He is a student filmmaker, and the kind of money he needs to save Tania with doesn't grow on trees. He begins raising funds by mugging men at public toilets, and graduates to stealing the drug money accumulated by more serious gangsters. After he has raised the money to accomplish his goal, his girl, the light of his life, confesses that she despises him, and then goes out and gets arrested.

This is the story of Mitja, a young doctor, who chooses to work in the middle of nowhere, to help the people who are forgotten by God. He lives and works in the steppe, which seems empty and deserted. But every day he has patients coming in his homehospital: one man’s heart stops after heavy drinking, another comes with a dying cow. A policeman, the only authority in this vast region, comes to see Mitja very often. Life is dangerous in the steppe. There are fights between different groups of local people. Sometimes Mitja has to treat wounded people. One day his wife comes to visit him from a far away city: she comes to tell him that she decided to leave him and marry another man. He is left alone. But he feels that there is somebody or something always present nearby. In the long run this strange menace becomes a reality.
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