A young couple move apart from one another to go to college but remain together in a long distance romance. The pair must try to do whatever it takes to stay in touch and eventually be reunited. Everything has changed, but can their love survive the distance?

In 1957 French student Pierre Durand comes to Moscow to do an internship at Moscow State University. Here he meets ballerina Kira Galkina and photographer Valera Uspenskiy. With them he discovers the cultural side of Moscow — not just the traditional one, but the underground one as well. During his year in Russia’s capital Pierre lives an entirely different life than what he’s used to. But the internship and the experience of the Soviet people’s way of life are not the only things Pierre is after. He’s searching for his father, White officer Tatishchev, who was arrested in the 1930s.

The film's central premise is that a person only truly understands their true nature in extreme situations. The harsh conditions of the wild Pamir Mountains, where the film's main action unfolds, reveal the deepest foundations of the protagonists' personalities and motivations, forcing them to "wake up" from the mindless daily grind of the big city and make a crucial choice that can mean the difference between life and death. It is here, in the Pamir Mountains, at an altitude of several thousand meters, far from civilization, that a person understands who they are. And receives what they deserve...