We recall the bloodiest battle that became a turning point in modern European history, the battle of Stalingrad, its causes, its main events. The film takes into account new research, uses little-known or previously unpublished materials from the Bundesarchive and the Museum "Children of Tsaritsyn-Stalingrad-Volgograd".

This elderly woman keeps the economy of a large family. Yes, it cannot be otherwise, because she is a strong person, she survived the death of her husband, and persecution, and the change of eras, and the change of rulers. And a change of country. She is Russian, but she lived her life among the Kurds, in a Kurdish village in Iraq. Her life is now seen through the eyes of an unknown narrator, who has the voice of director Sokurov and comes from a clan of great narrators of Russian literary classics, including official Zaitsev and veteran of the Caucasian wars Maxim Maksimych.