Based on the story of Chingiz Aitmatov "The White Steamer". In a forest cordon, lost high in the mountains, an old man and an old woman and his daughter live with their family - a husband and a seven-year-old son named Shambala, which means "boy-candle" or "boy who radiates light." Shambhala faithfully believes in the ancient myth of the Mother Deer, who saved the last baby of their kind, Bugu, from enemies and fed him with her milk. And although over time people exterminated the deer, the boy believes that someday the deer will still return to their land.

An amnesiac old man Zarlyk who after twenty-three years of ordeal in a foreign land, returns to his homeland. Events take place in a village in Kyrgyzstan, where he is brought by his matured son Kubat. Much has changed during his absence: the morals of the villagers, mired in the realities of a changing world, radicalization of Islam, growing crime, and moral corrosive corruption began to consume... Zarlyk’s wife Umsunai, having lost hope of his return, went into religion, married the local authority Jaichy. The bright past invades the already accustomed Umsunai’s life. But nothing touches Zarlyk. An inexplicable passion for collecting garbage replaced him everything. Will the memory return to him and will Umsunai gain lost happiness when they are pressed by tight attitudes and immorality of the clergy, when love has eclipsed recklessness?

In post-Civil War 1923, a young Red Army veteran is sent to the mountainous Kirghiz region of Kyrgyzstan to establish the first school. The former soldier becomes a teacher, bringing Leninist doctrine to the remote Moslem area where elders forbade children to attend school. He falls in love with one of his students, but the young woman is sold by her father to a wealthy chieftain.

Bakai is an old shepherd who lives in the country while his children have long grown accustomed to life in the city. When his youngest son pays him a visit, Bakai wants him to stay and help with the rigors of rural living.

In a remote Kyrgyz village, Dzhamilya follows her parents' orders when she marries a man without loving him. Then World War II breaks out and her new husband has to leave the village. While being alone, Dzhamiliya meets the returning soldier Daniyar and falls in love with him instead. Years later, their young friend Seid reminisces about the couple.

Kyrgyzstan, the 1920s. In a remote mountain village, against the will of the local elites and in defiance of centuries-old traditions, a woman—Urkuya Salieva—is elected chair of the agricultural cooperative. Salieva is determined to build a new life with an uncompromising resolve against anyone who would obstruct the poor, a stance unusual for a woman.