At the mouth of the taiga river, on the territory of a meteorological station, there is a new house. But meteorologists don’t live in it, they live in the old one, where it’s cozier and warmer, where there’s a stove and a walkie-talkie. The new house is a “home for vagabonds,” for those for whom the desire to wander is not a profession, but an inclination of the soul. To get to his new home, the main character of the story has to spend twenty hours on a plane and swim several hundred kilometers along the river