During the next duty, patrolman Vera Sedova single-handedly prevents a tragedy at the college, but a student dies in the process. She claims that the guy had a sawed-off gun, however, no weapons were found. The policewoman is cursed by her parents and the public. The only one who becomes humanly sorry for Vera is the appointed lawyer Ilya Nesterov. Ilya is more and more immersed in the case and is convinced that his client may be right.
The heroine of this story, a young woman, considers herself a believer and tries to live according to the commandments. But an unexpected meeting turns for her into love for a married man, and her feeling does not remain unanswered. However, a man belongs to a culture where the presence of a mistress is not forbidden, and even encouraged, while divorce is extremely negatively perceived. He sees no problem in starting a second family. The heroine will have a harsh choice between her faith and her beloved. And the most important thing is that she will have to find out whether she can make such a choice on her own, or everything is predetermined from above.
The action takes place shortly after the end of the Second World War in the Siberian hinterland, among Russians and Germans with damaged personal stories and a strange transformation: the victors seem to be crawling into the skins of the defeated, and vice versa. Ignat, is the embodiment of the larger-than-life image of the Soviet victorious warrior who, in fact, proves to be shell-shocked, sick and broken, although not completely destroyed. Trains become fetish for the heroes of the film, and speed becomes a mania; they virtually become one with their steam engines, while the machines take on human names. The heroes set up an almost fatal race in the Siberian forest, risking their own lives and those of others.
