The political drama is set in the Stalin's Soviet Union after the Second World War. A British archaeologist Andrei Miller (Andrews) is working in Iran. He is mistakenly kidnapped and arrested by the KGB. He is falsely accused of spying and wrongfully sentenced to a Gulag prison-camp in Siberia.

A heroic fantasy about an artist’s destiny at the tumultuous time of social transformations. One of director Alexander Mitta’s best films. The south of Russia, 1920. In a town square, a mono-performance is on, based on Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”. The film’s hero who took the pseudonym “Revarm”, which stands for “Revolutionary Art for the Masses”, is seriously interested in theatre. The real life and the stage one are intertwined in his destiny. In a provincial town where the power continuously changes hands, going from the Reds to the Whites, from the Whites to a band of the Greens, this youthful stage reformer, endowed with the gift of persuasion, attracts people to his cause, leaving no one indifferent.

百合子（栗原小卷 饰）是一名优秀的日本芭蕾舞演员，被选中前往莫斯科参加进修演出，就这样，百合子生平第一次离开了故乡，孤身一人来到了这个陌生的城市，开始了前所未有的全新生活。刚开始，百合子对莫斯科的一切都感到非常的不习惯，生活困苦，事业受挫，但这一切在百合子结识了名为瓦洛佳（奥列格·维多夫 Oleg Vidov 饰）的雕塑家之后，发生了改变。
很快，百合子就和瓦洛佳坠入了情网之中，感情的滋润让她在舞蹈事业里大放光彩，百合子优秀的舞台表现让她为自己赢得了在国家大剧院表演《吉赛尔》的机会。可就在这个节骨眼上，百合子被查出患上了白血病，时日无多。