Some of us remember when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Some of us recall the explosion that destroyed the space shuttle Challenger. Each of those moments was symbolic of our collective hopes and dreams: one signalling the beginning of a new phase, one signalling the end of it. In 1957, the Soviet Union was caught up in the excitement of the Sputnik programme, and the launch of the world′s first satellite into space. Konyok is a cook and sometime boxer. He′s a little gullible, but mostly idealistic. He meets Gherman, a former political prisoner with secret desires to defect. Konyok sees and era of freedom from paranoia and an end to captivity in his own country ahead-Gherman is less sure. Director Alexey Uchitel wanted to focus on questions of how we define freedom-spiritual, not just political-in the film where space represents a dreamland for his characters. Agreeing that modern Russian audiences may not understand the drive to defect, he avoids a comparison of then and now and concentrates on the freedom that transcends time.