A film about the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the Russian Far East, its history and present-day struggles, seen through the eyes of young people, old Communists, former labor-camp prisoners, and the local avant-garde theater KnAM, performing a slow reading of Dostoevskys Notebooks. A film about a love affair with a city, its struggle with the past, and its hope for the future.