Set in a remote and bleak border post during the 1970s cold war between China and Russia, this is a study of boredom and a gradual thawing of relations between opposing guards which leads to a bizarre border incident.

Matthias Bleuel, a logistician of a german mail order company is send to Kemorovo in Siberia to teach some russian subsidiary company the german work flow system. But soon this land changes him and everything for him.

Maya becomes the target of the Russian mafia after her husband, a successful American businessman, is killed.