Into the white nights of Saint-Petersburg (or some other seaport in the North of Russia) comes a young provincial man aged 25 (Sergey) in search for luck, love and sheer thrill of the city life. He served his term in the army, have been working as a mechanic in a car shop, and now he seizes his opportunity, when his father’s army buddy (Mikhail, 50) invites him for a time being to the city for some “important job”. Job seems to be peanuts: he must go to Germany and drive back an expensive SUV, bought by Mikhail and his business partner in hope of making some profit on reselling it in Russia.
Of course nothing goes as it was planned. Sergey is robbed on the road, car is stolen. Police hardly can be of much help, since Sergey (perhaps, justly) suspects, that the car was not quite “clean” in the first place. Severely beaten Sergey shows up in the city apartment of Mikhail and his wife Rita (35).
Mikhail is a small time businessman, and for him the loss of 10-15 grand means a lot, namely another delay in construction of his own house where he plans to start a new life. He seems to be tough on the surface, but indeed he’s a deeply unhappy man, feeling insecure and frustrated by life in modern Russia, to which he’s never been able to adjust properly. He decides to keep Sergey in the city to get the money back from him. But when Sergey promises to work off his debt, Mikhail answers somewhat elusively: “Yes, but in my way”.
Though the story starts as a taut criminal thriller, then it slows down a bit and takes an unexpected turn. Sergey finds himself on a moored ship years ago bought by Mikhail in a vain hope of turning it into a luxurious hotel. Now it’s more like a flophouse, populated by assorted set of quirky characters: gastarbeiters, alcoholics, and inhabitants of a burnt down house (although some of them make a habit of claiming that this was a terrorist attack, it turns out eventually that it was just smoking in bed…). At the same time all these people are not losers: all of them have bright personalities, wit, and hope. Hope, that this life is just a temporary condition. Although some of them suspect, that there is nothing more permanent, than a temporary life in Russia.
Among them we’ll find:
Actor (27), who’s doing odd jobs like pizza deliveries and small roles in crappy TV-series in a hope for a big break;
Blagin (43), former doctor turned alcoholic, but with a noble streak;
Chechen (31), industrious, impeccably shaven gastarbeiter, who speaks perfect Russian (although everybody calls him Chechen and half-jokingly, half-seriously blames him for terrorism, it turns out he is from another republic, Osetia…);
Nikolay (48), a desperate, worn-out worker of a huge metal works, who developed a mania of solving crosswords;
Anna (45), Nikolay’s wife; she was seriously burnt during the fire that destroyed their house and now is very ill;
Katya (17), Nikolay’s and Anna’s daughter, dreaming of entering the dept. of Philosophy of Petersburg University, only because of the fact, that her favorite pop-singer Zemfira did so…
Natasha (27), Rita’s sister, who refuses to live with Rita and Mikhail, suspecting that the latter has some plans for her; Natasha works with Rita in a small cafй in a port area; an old jukebox in this joint given by a German sailor to Natasha provides us with a rich soundtrack of oldies…
With this bunch of people Sergey finds friendship (with Blagin and Chechen), adoration (from Katya) and love (with Natasha). Moreover he finds something like a spiritual guidance from a reclusive vagabond fisherman (Fyodor, 63) living in a container in the port. Although he doesn’t speak much of himself, it can be seen that his biography was far from simple and serene (finally we find out that his son was killed in the army). It’s he who sits at Anna’s deathbed, who prevents the murder, and finally goes to prison for a crime he didn’t committed.
In a series of sometimes comic, sometimes tragic incidents (arguments with Blagin, fishing with Fyodor, walks in the white nights with Natasha, death of Anna) Sergey will discover life that is surely different from his vague dream, but nevertheless vivid and poignant.
But the debt must be paid. One day Mikhail shows up and gives Sergey a gun - and an order to kill his business partner. Mikhail suspects that it was him who organized the car theft to oust him out of their business and to ruin his life. But by his talk we can see that this is more likely to be his paranoia and envy.
Sergey takes the gun and even goes as far as waiting for his victim in a courtyard of his house. He crosses his victim’s path, but nothing happens. In a desperate urge Sergey runs to the river and throws out the gun. While he’s running we catch in windows the glimpses of temporary lives: someone’s watching TV, making love, arguing, feeding a baby… This is a key scene of the movie.
Sergey comes back to the ship. When Mikhail turns up in the morning and finds out that his order wasn’t fulfilled he becomes furious. But this is a fury of a weak, broken man. He tries to strangle Sergey. Katya wants to protect him, grabs a boat-hook and accidentally kills Mikhail.
A year passes.
Rita renovates a ship to finally turn it into the real hotel. Natasha goes abroad with a German sailor. Katya, Sergey and Chechen are visiting Fyodor in jail. It turns out that he took the rap for Mikhail’s killing.
Meanwhile on the ship Blagin, Actor and Nikolay are drinking vodka to commemorate the anniversary of Anna’s death. But they seem to be quite cheerful. Prospects are good, they were promised new apartment from municipal authorities. Blagin tells Actor to go and fetch another bottle. After a few minutes of his absence Nikolay goes to check on him and finds him half-dead - he tried to hang himself. Nikolay drags him back to the mess-room, slaps him several times, brings him back to consciousness and pours him a glass of vodka. “You must live, stupid fuck! We all must”. These are the last words of the movie.