Once, long ago, gold was found in the Chelyabinsk region. Today the village of Shershny stands on the site of the former gold mines. A local resident, Galina Georgievna, decides to install a sewage pipe and digs a hole near her house – a simple idea that results in unexpected discoveries.

Among the Indian elephants, the German service, calendars with kittens and Stalin - hundreds of little things. The true story is difficult to discern. Life, told over a cup of tea, is like a mosaic coming together in the terrible history of the country. A country saturated with a cult of personality and rejection of memory. Volunteers of the Gulag History Museum go to witnesses and victims of the Stalinist repressions in order to reassemble the evidence of the time and understand something about themselves.