This true story took place in 1910 in Eastern Siberia, in the expanses of Yakutia. Yakut Stepan Beresekov periodically falls into a lethargic sleep. Only a Russian, the son of a priest, Ivan Popov, can distinguish his condition from real death. But Popov leaves for a long ethnographic expedition. Stepan decides to follow his savior so as not to be buried alive.