About the title
This true story took place in 1910 in Eastern Siberia, on the vast lands of Yakutia. Stepan Beresekov, a Yakut, periodically falls into a lethargic sleep. Only Ivan Popov, the priest's son, can tell his condition apart from real death. But Popov sets off on a long ethnographic expedition. Stepan decides to follow his savior so as not to be buried alive.