It's 1939. Russia teeters on the verge of war with Germany. It is also on the brink of bankruptcy. To preserve his regime, Stalin orders a search for the legendary missing gold of Tsar Nicholas II. For this task, he chooses Pekkala, the former investigator for the Tsar. To accomplish his mission, Pekkala will go undercover, returning to Siberia and the nightmare of his own past, where he was once a prisoner in the notorious Gulag known as Borodok...

The German Army begins to shatter before the advancing Soviet forces in 1944. Two Russian soldiers burrow into the crypt of a German church, where, clutched in the hands of a priest's skeleton, they discover a priceless icon last seen in the grasp of Rasputin, the mad monk who mesmerized the Romanovs. When news of the discovery reaches Moscow, Stalin calls upon his most trusted investigator, Inspector Pekkala, to unravel the secret of the icon's past....

A soldier returns from the frontline of battle to report that Inspector Pekkala's charred body has been found at the site of an ambush. But Stalin refuses to believe that the indomitable Pekkala is dead. On Stalin's orders, Pekkala's assistant Kirov travels deep into the forests of Western Russia, following a trail of clues to a wilderness where partisans wage a brutal campaign against the Nazi invaders. Unknown to Kirov, he is being led into a trap...

In a small, provincial town behind the Iron Curtain, Sasha lives in a house full of secrets, one of which is her own dream of becoming an actress. Before she leaves for Moscow to audition for drama school, Sasha discovers the hidden war journal of her uncle Kolya. His pages expose the official lies and the forbidden truth of Stalin's brutality. As a past secret comes to light, Sasha must decide if her dreams are truly worth the necessary sacrifice...