In Moscow, Laura, a Finnish student, and her Russian girlfriend Irina Mezhinskaya plan a trip to Murmansk to see ancient petroglyphs, but Irina cancels due to a scheduling conflict. Laura decides to go alone.
On the train, she shares a sleeping compartment with Lyokha, a drunk and brash Russian miner. He riddles her with questions to translate phrases into Finnish, then mocks the translations. When he asks how to say “I love you,” she tells him it is
> haista vittu
(which means “fuck you”). He then asks if she is going to Murmansk to work as a prostitute, and she angrily leaves the compartment. She asks to be moved, but the guard refuses. Unable to find another place to sleep, she returns to the compartment, where Lyokha is sleeping, and she sketches a picture of his sleeping face.
Laura disembarks at the next stop intending to return to Moscow. She calls Irina, but Irina is too busy to talk, so she spontaneously gets back on the train, where Lyokha has kept her place in the compartment. They share a brief conversation in the dining carriage, and Laura tells him of her plan to visit the petroglyphs. She says she is in a relationship but lies about having a boyfriend.
The train stops overnight in Petrozavodsk. Lyokha invites Laura to visit friends with him, but she declines. After stepping off the train to use a payphone, she is accosted by a Russian man, yet Lyokha intervenes. They visit an elderly woman together, where they drink moonshine. Laura wakes up the next morning badly hungover to find Lyokha chopping wood for their host. The woman tells Laura that she “has found a good man.”
Laura encounters another tourist, Sasha, on the train and invites him to share their compartment. He plays the guitar, and Lyokha grows angry and withdrawn, leaving the train at a stop to play with the snow. Laura watches him fall over, which he later denies, and he rudely declines a drink from her. After Sasha leaves, Laura discovers that Sasha has stolen her video camera, and Lyokha commiserates. Laura reveals that she is in a same-sex relationship and confesses that she misses Irina less than she thought.
As the train nears Murmansk, they attempt to celebrate in the dining car but find they are out of nearly everything except sandwiches and alcohol. Laura shows Lyokha a drawing she made of him, and when she asks him to reciprocate, he grows frustrated and storms off. They eventually embrace when they return to the carriage.
Arriving in Murmansk, Laura learns there is no easy way to reach the petroglyphs by car in winter. She visits the open-cast mine where Lyokha works, and he comes to her hotel, offering to take her to the petroglyphs. The only way to reach the site is by boat, and Lyokha persuades some local sailors to take them despite a gale warning. They reach the petroglyphs site only to find nothing there, so they play in the snow before returning to Murmansk. Lyokha goes back to work without saying goodbye. A taxi driver later hands Laura a note from him, along with a crude drawing of her face on the back that reads “Haista vittu.”
