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.

The film is about how the childhood friendship of a boy and a girl grows with age into a feeling that they, being shy, are afraid to open to each other. Based on the story "Amma Achchygya" by Nikolai Mordvinov.