The novel takes place throughout the 20th century, from 1905 to 2000, in St. Petersburg, Berlin, Paris, the Urals, and Karelia. The narrative centers on a clan of Russian Germans, an agricultural colony on the outskirts of Leningrad. The "Russian line" develops in parallel. Two dynasties intertwine, intricately and somewhat mystically. The final relic, revealed to them by chance, threatens to shed light on the tragic secret of a German family. Can the last representatives of three branches of the same lineage decipher the code encoded within?