Ira und Vadim are an item. Ira is 19 and Vadim is one year younger. Ira lives in St. Petersburg, Vadim in a young offenders’ institution, having been sent down for four and half years for manslaughter. Ira loves him and wants to stand by him. They write to each other: ordinary love letters in which Vadim describes prison life – somewhat embellished, as he later admits. At the same time, filmmaker and photographer David Kinsella shows how things really are in a young offenders’ institution. In sharply contrasting black and white, he documents the stark reality of prison life for inmates who, by the age of 17, have no future to look forward to – such as Andrej, nicknamed Raskolnikov because he killed two women with an axe. Whereas Andrej will never be released, Vadim is pardoned. But freedom unexpectedly poses a new and difficult challenge for him and Ira. With the help of Kinsella's documentary photographs, their struggle to lead the life of a normal couple is distilled into an almost lyrical film.