This is a story of a family during the true dramatic events of the 70s in the Soviet Odessa. The city is on quarantine because of a cholera epidemic. The story depicts three generations of the Davydov family. Each has its own secrets, old wounds and unsaid words. The mortal danger makes them show their real nature and do things they wouldn't do in a normal situation. The protagonist Boris is preparing to go on a long-term business trip to Germany, but he falls in love with a young girl living nearby and experiences feelings that he has never had in his life; the patriarch of the family goes to the KGB and tells on his younger daughter as she is going to leave the Soviet Union and immigrate to Israel with her husband; the middle daughter tries to support her failure husband and is ready to change her real surname to the “correct” one... Only little Valerka likes everything in the city and doesn’t want to go to Moscow.