A rural woman, Mariya Konovalova (Nonna Mordyukova) travels to the regional center to visit her daughter Nina (Svetlana Kryuchkova), and her beloved granddaughter Irishka (Fedor Stukov). This good-natured and simple-minded woman cannot imagine the world they are living in - the dearest and perhaps the only people close to her. In her attempts to understand their views on life and improve her daughter’s strained relationship with her ex-husband, she inadvertently brings them all a great deal of grief.