At first glance, this is a story about an ordinary family who recently moved into a large country house. Karina, her husband Renat and Karina's younger sister Alice. The family idyll is disrupted at the moment when the girl begins to realize that someone else lives in the house...
This movie is about the life of Marat Ayumov, a former soldier from Kazakhstan who fought in Afghaninstan. The past and present are interwoven in the memories of the protagonist. Throughout the film, in fragmented flashbacks, the hero recollects the time when he, as a soldier, fought in the armed conflict in the mountainous country as he travels to Afghanistan to accompany a young and creative TV crew making a documentary called “Following Alexander the Great”.
Tanabay is a proud Kazakh war hero and loyal Communist who is pressured into taking a position as a herdsman in a collective farm in the Stalinist era after WWII. The pride and joy of the collective is a beautiful stallion named Gulsary. After Gulsary wins a race, the new commissar of the collective lays claim to the beloved and headstrong horse, which leads to a battle of a wills. Tanabay and Gulsary are both punished and separated for their refusal to bend to the rules of the Stalinist era.