Meredith and Nina Whitson are sisters, but it's hard to find women more different. One is a homebody who has always believed that there is no better destiny than getting married, raising children and managing the family apple nursery. Another dreamed of travel, became a photojournalist covering humanitarian disasters, and wanders around the world, avoiding conversations about the future and family. A father's heart attack brings the sisters together in their parents' house. They have never seen anything other than icy disapproval from their mother with Russian roots, and even now Anya does not try to get closer to her daughters, showing the familiar detachment. As children, only one thing united them with their mother: a fairy tale about a poor girl and a prince, which she told the girls at night. Realizing that he is dying, the father asks his daughters to listen to the fairy tale - until the very end. Thus begins the journey of two women into their mother’s past, into her life in besieged Leningrad.