In a Russian village lives twice widowed Anna Fedorovna Belova with her alcoholic brother Michail Fedorovich who philosophies about social and political matters, regularly gets drunk, and time to time threatens to kill his sister. Two other brothers visit them. They drink a great deal of tea, steam in a Russian bath and discuss whether there exists "a measure to measure ordeals." With this simple scenario, the director captures the everyday life of a rural family at once repetitive and shaken by the ongoing changes in the society.