Varvara Zinovieva was convicted of fraud and sentenced by the court to hard labor (katorga) in Siberia for three years. The woman had a hard time enduring the long journey from Moscow to the Siberian prison in the godforsaken city of Nerchinsk.
However, she was not destined to remain in the women's prison. A certain Major Lamansky, the head of the prison fortress Algachin, chose Varvara and two other women as his concubines. Varvara found herself in a hopeless position and had to entertain an aging libertine. However, Lamansky did not hurt his concubines and he tried to make their stay in the prison-fortress bearable.
Once the merchant Sigismund Swarovski came to Lamansky. He came from a family of exiled Poles. Sigismund's grandfather, a Polish aristocrat, was exiled from Siberia for participating in the uprising against the Russian emperor. Sigismund met Varvara at Lamansky's house. The Pole understood perfectly well that she was the major's concubine. But this did not stop him from falling in love with a young woman. Varvara reciprocated Sigismund. The love of Varvara and Sigismund became a ray of light in the darkness of the prison fortress of Algachin.
What will happen to the lovers? Will they stay together? Or will an evil fate separate them?