In 1934, thirteen-year-old Marya and her younger brother, Georgi, set out alone on a long and arduous journey into Siberia to find their mother after she and their father are exiled for opposing Stalin.

Twelve-year-old orphan Arcady copes with his difficult life in a Soviet children's home by spending as much time as possible playing soccer. When Ivan Ivanych, a man who lost his wife to the Stalinist purges, takes Arcady in and offers to coach him, it transforms both of their lives in profound ways.