Before embarking on his filmmaking career, director Alexey Balabanov trained as a military translator in the closed city of Gorky. This film, created by students from Nizhny Novgorod, explores the questions: What shapes a young artist's path, and what inspires the stories they choose to tell? For the first time since 1995, the film unveils an archival interview with Alexey Balabanov from one of his earliest film festivals, along with rare footage of his collaboration with Alexey German Sr. at Lenfilm.