Synopsis
On the edge of the city Nizhny Tagil, in the Ural Mountains of Russia, there is a small train station named San Donato -for a Russian train station, a remarkable name. This documentary essay explores the hows and the whys of this name. Director Baluyev returns to the region where his previous film Mam (2003) depicted its young inhabitants' dead-end daily existence. In addition, he also films San Donato in Florence, a former principality that was once bought by the wealthy Russian industrialist Anatole Demidoff. To this day, street names and a museum villa recall his presence in Italy. The Demidoff Dynasty got rich with the steel industry in the Ural Mountains, which partly explains the name of the Russian train station. Residents and station employees tell the history of the train station and express their daily worries. Life in the Italian town of San Donato is contrasted with the poverty of its Russian namesake; the greatest common factor between these two intertwined worlds being art, including a lot of classical music and statues from the Renaissance and Soviet Era.