Kolia's life begins in a labour camp in eastern Siberia in 1937. Iosif, a prisoner from Western Europe, teaches him the basic knowledge for survival in the harsh environment of the Gulag, but he also teaches him calculus, Russian, and French, before disappearing like most people who have lived in the open-air prison. After Stalin's death, Kolia is released from the camp and thrown into Soviet society. He joins a circus in Moscow, where he finds the comfort of a family, and is successful until the collapse of the USSR. But the memory of Iosif and the Gulag haunt him all his life.