Along a rutted, dusty road, an army truck carries a plain wooden crate through a remote region of Soviet Russia. Stopping at a small farmhouse, two soldiers deliver the crate to a hardened farmer, Kostya, and his wife, Lida. The sight of it fills the couple with dread, having not heard in months from their only son, a soldier fighting in the Eastern Front. Inside the crate are paintings - priceless works of Russian art evacuated from Leningrad days before the German invasion - which Kostya and Lida must now protect at all costs. Determined to keep his dying farm alive for his son's return, Kostya sees the paintings as a nuisance and a painful reminder. Yet, as his fields dry up, a harsh winter shrouds the region, and it becomes ever more likely that his son will not return, Kostya must find meaning in his new, strange stewardship, as these works of art become the only legacy he can leave behind.