The provincial city of Yegoryevsk, lost among the snow-covered expanses of Siberia, greets St. Petersburg resident Sophie Domagatskaya with terrible news. Her beloved Serge Dubrovin, after whom she came to this godforsaken land, was killed by robbers. To ease her grief, Sophie joins city life, and very soon it becomes clear to her that the outer calm of the city is only a mask and beneath it passions are boiling no less strong than in the capital of the empire...