Winter of 1919, Petrograd. The wind of destruction is blowing through the city. In a frozen apartment, an Oriental professor sees a living incarnation of the Buddha... A Buddha statue found by a professor many years ago in the Gobi Desert turns his life upside down: by the decision of the revolutionary government, he is included in a group that must return the statue to a Mongolian monastery in exchange for cattle for starving Petrograd. Unusual travelers gathered in a cold carriage around a bronze statue. Everyone pursues their own goal...