1944, a train full of city dwellers including the residents of an orphanage, arrives in the Caucasus, the Promised Land where all the fruits and vegetables so rare in the city grow and where mountain walks will replace the sordid surroundings of the war years. Among the children, two twin brothers, about ten years old, Kolia and Sacha, already well used to "getting by" to survive. But what strikes the children first is the apparent absence of people, the empty houses. And the silence of the mountains is punctuated by unexpected detonations. The people they meet are either people who, wounded by the war, are looking for a new life, or rare Chechens who refuse the deportation recently decided, or Russian soldiers looking for the recalcitrants. During one of the armed clashes Sacha is killed, and Kolia finds himself alone with a little Chechen whose family has been decimated. They decide not to be separated again. This was without counting on the vigilance of the Russian police who, upon their arrival in town, will send Kolia's new brother to join his exiled compatriots.
