After experiencing a terrible tragedy, the hero leaves his former life. Everything that seemed important goes into the past — work, success, the usual rhythms of a big city. But the world of people refuses to let him go, bursts into his chosen solitude, beckons with new opportunities. Unexpectedly for himself, the hero finds a new home, where he seems to find peace, love and answers to his painful questions. But are these the right answers? And what price will you have to pay to survive and remain yourself?
Anton and his girlfriend Marina recently moved from the provinces to a Moscow suburb. Because of financial difficulties, Anton almost immediately starts working as cladman. While Marina is busy packaging drugs, Anton figures out the hiding places and deals a little in clubs.
Viktor spends his free time trawling bars with ladies of questionable repute, from where he is picked up by a wife he doesn’t love, the mother of a child they never planned. Viktor himself was abandoned by his own father, his mother then committed suicide, and he was left to grow up in an orphanage. Years later, his errant dad returns, now a disabled felon, and Viktor discovers a timely legacy is in the offing – his father’s apartment. The documentation for securing dad’s move into an old people’s home is signed in a flash. Nevertheless, the only one that can take him is miles away and, what’s more, the invalid starts to recuperate during the journey, which is when their real problems begin.
All day long the TV shows an ice-hole. Ice-holes are the theme of the day, a winter tradition that unites believers and sportsmen, stars and walruses, the president and the unemployed. In the centre of the news reports are the topics of Baptism, fishing and the criminal chronicle. The president and a pike, the artist and the crit- ics, the oligarch and the law enforcement team – they all meet at an ice- hole in search of solutions for their problems. The jobless Muscovite, with bad habits, dives down an ice-hole for a wife, just like Sadko. The fairy- tale plots intertwine with documentary context, and it is no longer clear where reality ends. Remember Nietzsche: if you long gaze into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you.
