Baba Dunja is a Chernobyl returnee. Together with a motley bunch of former neighbours, they set off to create a new life for themselves in the radioactive no-man’s land. Geiger counter and irradiated forest fruits be damned, there in that abandoned patch of Earth they have everything they need.

Terminally ill Petrov passes the time reading love poems; Marja takes up with 100-year-old Sidorow; Baba Dunja writes letters to her daughter. Rural bliss reigns, until one day a stranger turns up, and the small settlement faces annihilation once again.