Yakut Stepan Beresekov periodically falls into a lethargic sleep. Only a Russian, the son of a priest, Ivan Popov, can distinguish his condition from real death. But Popov is going on a long ethnographic expedition. Stepan decides to follow his savior so as not to be buried alive.
There is no escape from the war... 1942. While all the forces of the country are thrown into the fight against fascist Germany, in the southern part of Yakutia there are gangs robbing gold mines. The largest of them is the elusive and brutal Popov gang, which collects stolen gold to organize a military coup in the Far East. In their footsteps, a small detachment of the NKVD under the leadership of Senior Lieutenant Karasev is sent through the snow-covered endless taiga.
In late nineteenth-century Yakutia, Habji and his wife Keremes have just buried their second child, and are preparing for a harsh winter of famine. Instead of giving them the help he promised, the local prince foists a Russian convict, Kostya, on the family, who the law decrees must live in the same house as them. They initially struggle to find a common language, and the convict soon decides that he will be the master of the house from now on.