When a middle-aged high-court judge in 19th-century Russia starts to experience a sharp pain in his side, he soon finds himself bedridden with an undiagnosed terminal illness. Face-to-face with his own mortality, he becomes increasingly introspective and emotional as he ponders the reason for his acute suffering and imminent death.
Nikolai Petrovich comes to St. Petersburg to organize a revolution against the oligarchy.
In the Siberian taiga village of Wolf's Burrows, the Strogov family lives — Matvey with his wife Anna and his parents. Through the fate of this peasant family, a picture of the life of the Siberian region during major historical events — the Russo-Japanese War, the 1905 Revolution, the October Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War is outlined.
