Kyrgyzstan. Ascel is engaged to Sultan, the local Mr Big with the grandest house. This looks like a palace to Ascel, who lives in a hovel with her drunkard father. She doesn't love Sultan, but she wants a better life. She is having an affair with Marat and expecting his child. She marries Sultan but immediately leaves for Moscow for an abortion, and starts living with gastarbeiters. She sells her unborn child to Virginie, a French woman. She becomes housemaid to (and then lover of) a rich New Russian, Arkady. Marat appears, starts a fight with Arkady and gets arrested. Ascel decides to go to France and stay with Virginie. But she discovers that the latter has a mental disease. Then the baby arrives...