Alyonka

The action takes place in the mid-1950s, amid the Soviet drive to cultivate new agricultural lands in Kazakhstan. The harvest season frames the stories, highlighting migrations, construction, and the daily rhythms of a frontier community. Education, logistics, and family life converge as the state farm grows.

The film unfolds on the vast Kazakh steppes during the Virgin Lands Campaign, a landscape defined by wide horizons and expanding settlements. Travelers converge on a newly established state farm near the district center Aryk, while Belogorsk anchors the region's broader development. The setting revolves around harvest season, labor, and the push to modernize rural life across the Virgin Lands.

🗺️ Migration

People travel hundreds of kilometers to join the Virgin Lands project, carrying stories of home with them. The film stitches diverse journeys into a single tapestry through Alyonka’s childlike lens. Each vignette reveals how movement reshapes identities, relationships, and hopes.

🌾 Progress

The campaign seeks modernization—new schools, clinics, and equipment—often facing practical hurdles like the absence of a proper office or dental chair. Elsa’s quest to source equipment and the community’s labor underscore both possibility and friction in building a new rural order. The stories frame development as both opportunity and challenge.

💔 Sacrifice

Tragedy punctuates the journey: Liza dies saving seed reserves, testifying to the risks of frontier life and the value placed on communal survival. Vasilysa’s endurance and the choice of her other daughter to come to the Virgin Lands deepen the theme of family sacrifice. Loss becomes a catalyst for collective resolve.

🎒 Education

Alyonka’s long 500-kilometer trek to a district center highlights the central role of schooling in the Virgin Lands project. The absence of a local school in the state farm creates urgency and resilience among families. The film uses Alyonka’s perspective to explore how education anchors futures amid displacement.