Albert(Berto) Cohen, an Israeli professor, returns to the city of his birth in Bulgaria to give a lecture and begins a sentimental journey into the past. He runs into his first love, Araxi Wartanyan and they reminisce about their childhood and the unique atmosphere of Plovdiv in the Forties, one of the oldest cities in the Balkans, where diverse ethnic groups all lived in peace. Stalin′s purges drive out the Gypsies, the Turks, and other ethnic groups, so Berto tries to get Araxi and her Bulgarian/Armenian parents out of the country. He waits for a letter that never arrives and later learns that the family was never allowed to leave. Araxi and her mother were sent to a remote village while her father died in a labor camp. Not long after, the Plovdiv Jews began to be sent to the ′Promised Land′ Kostas, an old photographer who stayed behind, documented everything he could. Through he and his work, Berto and Araxi immerse themselves in the long-forgotten world of their youth.