Through the night city beyond the Arctic Circle, where the windows of empty five-story buildings are rarely lit, Ilya is driving a van filled with rusty scrap metal. When he returns home, he composes poetry for his beloved, admires the tyranny of Stalin and prepares to move to Moscow in order to escape from the tormenting memories of how his father mercilessly beat him in childhood. But the unpredictable cruelty and total dislike for people that he has grown up with from the early childhood become an obstacle for Ilya on his way to a new life.