The thirties, the heyday of Soviet film production. The story of the famed couple's glory — a filmmaker and actress, behind the external well-being of which were hidden strange contradictory relationships and a sense of fear that they carried through their whole lives. The prologue to this story is the 85th anniversary of Lidiya Polyakova, the formerly brightest star in Soviet cinema, who played the main role in all the films of her own husband, director Konstantin Dalmatov. Now in the courtyard there are other times, Dalmatov’s movies are called ideological agitation, and the director himself and his wife are hiding from the world in the country, trying not to let anyone in.

In a small community in the Ural mountains of Russia in 1953, just after Stalin's death, Barracks begins with the arrival of Olga (Irina Senotova). Olga is alone, her entire family wiped out by a Stalinist purge in Leningrad. She is soon romanced by a militiaman named Alexei, who serves as the community liaison to the government