About the title
Summer 1945, a Cossack village in Transbaikalia. Ten-year-old Petka's father returns from the front, but the joy of reunion is short-lived: the boy's best friend falls gravely ill. The locals can do nothing to help him. In despair, Petka goes to Hirotaro, a Japanese prisoner-of-war doctor from a nearby camp. The two of them, separated by language, war, and age, are forced to trust one another to help the dying boy. Together they set off into the steppe — to the place where, according to local legend, gods who can help them dwell. An adaptation of the novel of the same name by Andrei Gelasimov.