Having lost her husband, who was imprisoned for stealing coal and was killed during the escape, Polina, the mother of six children, was left without any support.

To make ends meet, Polina founded a family folk music ensemble.

Soon, however, she realizes that her children were worthy of a better fate, and she makes a desperate decision to escape the Soviet Union by hijacking the commercial airliner the family was traveling aboard.

Fifteen years later, Polina is released from prison to learn that fate has scattered her children all over the country: one is illegally fighting in a bar, another is chopping coal in the Donbas.

Her oldest, Leonid, is still in a psychiatric hospital, having pretended to be mentally ill for 15 years to avoid prosecution for the hijacking.