Vladimir Malyugin

Russian Empire. The second decade of the twentieth century. As a result of the conflict between the Entente and the bloc of the Central Powers led by Germany, which erupted in August 1914, Russia is drawn into the First World War. A wave of unrest is rolling through the country. Revolutionary moods are increasing every day. Counterintelligence is trying with all its might to suppress the activity of German spies active in the territory of the country ...

In the year 2012 (a future time when the film was made), an underground laboratory ten kilometres beneath the steppes of Western Siberia is the stage for the top-secret Project BUNKER. Distinguished scientists have been working on a mysterious scientific experiment for the last three years, with a strange, anonymous, and extremely popular erotic manuscript circulating through the complex serving as their only distraction. Now a new researcher has arrived — a veterinarian, despite the lack of animals at the facility — and the scientists already in place are wondering why.

On a college trip to remote Northern forests, one of the students - Marina - encounters a burial site of an ancient witch, and is possessed by the spirits of the past. Now Marina and her companions must take part in the millennia old fight between good and evil, involving lake witches, sorcerers, and ancient forces from the myths.

The film is based on the memories of Patriarch of All Russia Alexy II about his childhood, about his mother and father-priest, about how he went to Valaam with his parents as a child, about the terrible beginning of the war, which cut off his childhood in an instant, about the arrival of German troops in Estonia... Before the eyes of an 11-year-old boy, there are whole strings of complex human destinies. Being next to his father, little Alyosha saw how sometimes it is unfair for an ordinary provincial priest, sincerely, from the bottom of his heart trying to help the desperate, to keep hope and faith in goodness in them...