A dying woman’s wish sends her son on a train journey from the steppes of Uzbekistan to the Russian hinterland in search of his father’s grave. Just as the traveler’s home city of Samarkand is situated on the border between East and West, Khamraev balances his film on the edge of two cultures, evoking the soul of Russia and the crumbling beauty of what was once the Silk Road.

Three women’s lives intersect in a small town in Uzbekistan following the Second World War. The first, an old woman trapped in a forced marriage; the second, a schoolteacher intent on imposing progress on the remote region; the third, a young woman determined to build her own house without her husband’s or the state’s approval.

A romance by Ali Khamraev with musical numbers interspersed