Aspiring photo reporter Natalya Medvedeva goes to the first Chechen war in 1995. Then she does not yet know that she will spend seven years in the war. On one of her first trips she meets Shamil Basayev. She does not yet know that fate or war will give her the chance for several years to follow the transformation of this then unremarkable field commander into terrorist number one. He doesn’t know that he will meet with Dudayev, who will once again be declared dead. That she will try to save Russian prisoners of war from captivity. And each time she will try to answer the question for herself: what is keeping her in this war? What?