À la suite du terrible tremblement de terre de 1988 en Arménie, un père de famille russe et un jeune arménien décident de porter secours aux survivants et de retrouver leurs proches.
According to a contemporary New York Times article, the first half of the film shows "Armenia as it was before Turkish and German devastation, and led up to the deportation of priests and thousands of families into the desert. One of the concluding scenes showed young Armenian women flogged for their refusal to enter Turkish harems and depicted the Turkish slave markets."
Norway, World War II. Hanna, whose husband Henrik participates in the resistance movement, gives temporary asylum to a prisoner of war, Arakel, by hiding him in her house in northern Norway. The presence of this stranger changes Hanna's life, and she starts writing about her mixed feelings in her diary.
The movie is set in a Yazidi village in Armenia, still suffering economically from the Soviet collapse. Hamo, a widower with three sons, visits his wife's grave every day. In the graveyard, he meets Nina, a widow who works in a local bar named Vodka Lemon which is about to close down. Both are penniless, yet start an unexpected relationship which revitalizes them.