Once the populous Russian-Tatar village Tankaevka gradually comes to desolation. Abandoned wooden houses gap with windows failures, orchards overgrow with swan and bird cherry trees. Nevertheless, the life of the remaining twelve inhabitants continues: they leisurely repair a rusty tractor, knit birch brooms, sculpt dumplings and, recalling the past, sing old forgotten songs.

A Lithuanian doctor, priest and a war refugee Alexander Ferdinand Bendoraitis (1919-1998) resettles to the Amazonian jungle in the 1960’s and becomes a local hero: he establishes a boat- clinic network, the first jungle radio, starts the pacification of local indigenous tribes and builds the most modern hospital in Amazonia. However, as he gets involved in a brutal crime, countless fake narratives that he had created around himself begin to resurface.