Galya, an alcoholic procuress, has lost rights to her daughter, Zoya, who is to be put in an orphanage. Galya decides to kidnap Zoya, and, with her autistic boyfriend, Stasik, heads to Kazakhstan to find Zoya's biological father.

The Kazakh village Karatas has long been subjugated by a criminal boss called Poshaev. He provides housing and jobs for the locals but will ruthlessly execute anyone who dares to oppose him. This is the lesson the pauper Arzu is about to learn first-hand—his wife Karina has informed the police about the crimes that are taking place there. Arzu is a cripple; now he must raise his little daughter alone. He is so helpless and grief-stricken that he doesn’t even seem to be contemplating revenge. Poshaev takes him under his wing and offers him the position of a guard at a building site. Soon Arzu has a chance to prove his loyalty, and he becomes Poshaev’s right hand. But where do Arzu’s real loyalties lie—with his boss or with the idea of justice?

Three friends open a camp for kids born in the city who do not know the traditions and customs of their ancestors.

Selkeu Uashev is a local police officer at Karatas village. He’s not a man of high morals and can hardly be called a role model as a policeman. He turns a deaf ear to lots of criminal offences and takes bribes. For that he’s loved a lot by local criminals and frauds. But one day the commission arrives from the city to declare the big audit all over the village due to pandemic…

Ademoka is a headstrong and gifted 15-year-old girl whose big dream is to study. Her status as Lyuli an illegal immigrant from Tajikistan is a serious obstacle to this. She is exploited by her extended family and forced to beg on the streets, she manages to free herself from the family, when they get deported she has to choose between family and education. She gets helped on the way by some oddball characters, who come to her aid against the corrupt system and the patriarchal family.

At night in Shymkent, a drunk driver knocks down three pedestrians to death. The driver turned out to be the son of an influential businessman who wants to avoid punishment by giving a bribe to witnesses. Two agree, except for one - a young student who refuses to keep silent for money and demands to transfer the case to the prosecutor. How will the student manifest himself when all the other witnesses have agreed to remain silent - will he remain true to his principles or, like everyone else, will he take the money?

Masked figures with machine guns march into the secondary school in Karatas, take the pupils hostage, and execute one of them. They make no demands. Silent terror is their modus operandi. Seeing as the army will take two days to arrive due to a snowstorm, maths teacher Tazshi decides to assemble his own assault team: his ex-wife, the gym teacher, the cowardly school principal, an alcoholic night watchman, the village idiot, and an incompetent chief of police.

Driven by the pain of losing a loved one, not to mention the all-pervasive injustice and abuse of power that surrounds him, a lone individual resorts to vigilante justice.

A new mayor seeks the origins of a mysterious illness that is running rampant throughout a remote village.

The plot of the film is based on real events that took place in Orphanage No. 4. A Korean plane crashed on the territory of Kazakhstan, and four Korean children ended up in a Kazakh orphanage.