Ivan, a successful oncologist who has created a cure for cancer, discovers suddenly that by an ironical twist of fate he is terminally ill. He realizes that he has one chance to correct the mistake he made a long time ago, and leaves his family to go to another city to the woman he loved all his life, hoping to spend the last night with her...

Following a brawl, Captain Ignat, who is traumatised by the death of his daughter, is ordered together with a regular soldier to find a deserter and bring him back via Moscow to stand before a military court. Although they locate the young soldier, their journey across the wintry moloch that is Moscow is slow and tortuous. Before long, the unlikely trio find themselves drawn into a chaotic maelstrom of violence, corruption, criminality, degradation and squalidness. In the face of the monstrous malaise and everyday horror of life in Russia, the gradual breakdown of the film’s anti-hero becomes a metaphor for Russian society.