At the height of the Cold War, a troubled soldier forms a forbidden love triangle with a daring fighter pilot and his female comrade amid the dangerous surroundings of a Soviet Air Force Base.

Johannes, a young Ingrian Finn, grows up in Soviet Estonia with his liberal student mother and pro-Soviet grandmother. The boy's life is revolutionized when he experiences first love and his mother decides to leave for Finland.

The Soviet Union teeters on the verge of collapse in 1990 and tiny Baltic nations struggle to take back their independence. A rising tide of public opinion opposes the Estonian national team's participation in the USSR's basketball championship. The team makes the unpopular choice to participate.

Aleksander, an old gentleman, maintains a blooming garden surrounding his old house in a sleepy resort town. Karl, his grandson, spends the summer with him and learns about the ways of the nature. Together with autumn rains arrives Aleksander’s daughter Marju, who hopes to inherit the old man’s house, tear it down and put up a guesthouse on the lot instead.